Neoliberalism and Global Insecurities: Thinking Resilience/Resistance in Turkey 1666930024, 9781666930023

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Neoliberalism and Global Insecurities

Neoliberalism and Global Insecurities Thinking Resilience/ Resistance in Turkey Edited by Rasim Özgür Dönmez

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2024 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dönmez, Rasim Özgür, editor. Title: Neoliberalism and global insecurities : thinking resilience/resistance in Turkey / Edited by Rasim Özgür Dönmez. Description: Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023034529 (print) | LCCN 2023034530 (ebook) | ISBN 9781666930023 (cloth) | ISBN 9781666930030 (epub) | ISBN 9781666930047 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Neoliberalism—Economic aspects—Turkey. | Security, International— Social aspects—Turkey. | Globalization—Turkey. | Turkey—Politics and government. Classification: LCC JC574.2.T9 N46 2023  (print) | LCC JC574.2.T9  (ebook) | DDC 320.5109561—dc23/eng/20230808 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023034529 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023034530 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction

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Chapter One: Neoliberalism and Subjective Poverty in Turkey: Strategies of Resilience against Poverty in the Middle Class Senem Kurt Topuz



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‌‌‌Chapter Two: New Modes of Vulnerabilities and Sensibilities of the Middle Class in Turkey‌‌: Dramatization as Politics in the Case of Sour Dictionary 49 Çağlar Enneli̇ and Pınar Enneli̇ ‌‌‌Chapter Three: The Gold and the Olive Tree‌‌: Defending the Land in Turkey Selcan Serdaroğlu Polatay

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‌‌‌Chapter Four: Gendered Insecurities an‌‌d Feminist Resistance in Turkey 123 Marella Bodur Ün ‌‌‌Chapter Five: Neoliberalism and Individual Insecurities in Turkey‌‌: Neoliberal Subjects between Popular Resistance and Resilience Rasi̇ m Özgür Dönmez Conclusion

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Appendix 1: Demographic Characteristics of the Participants Index

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177

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About the Contributors



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v

Acknowledgments

Turkey’s integration into global capitalism and the neoliberal system predominantly patterning on financial capitalism have created a belief in the citizens, particularly within the middle class, of enhancing the feeling of equality with the Global North by utilizing the global consumption regime. However, this feeling crumbled because of the 2008 global financial crisis, devastating national and global economic crises, and natural disasters. All these factors led to the vanishing of this simulation for Turkish people, reminding them of their basic instincts, namely resistance and resilience, inherited from this ancient land, Anatolia, and their ancestors. This book represents an effort to display how individuals and social groups in Turkey develop resistance and resilience strategies against the side effects of neoliberalism. I would like to dedicate this book to the souls of the people who died as a result of the February 6, 2023, earthquake in Turkey.

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Introduction

The collapse of the Berlin Wall heralded a victory of the Western Bloc against communism and opened a new era for the world glorifying neoliberalism, which Francis Fukuyama named “The End of History.”1 Neoliberalism designates the progress of consumer sovereignty, which is rooted in the concept of market rationalization as a space of truth and an ideological position that believes market-oriented tools can help individuals achieve their political and social goals.2 In addition, the neoliberal perspective glorifies the term “Homo economicus,” ontologically who is thought to have the wellbeing and supremacy in its pursuit for security and autonomy, leading to the realization of its power over nature and its destiny. However, neoliberalism was founded on the denial of the figure of Homo economicus in practice through the depiction of a form of subjectivity through neoliberal discourses of risk and security to bear the institutionalization of markets, private property rights, and free trade. This fact problematizes neoliberalism’s mythic representation of a rational sovereign subject with a strong desire to realize social and political goals through markets and power over nature. The neoliberal tradition envisions a resilient and disempowered subject who lives in a constant state of insecurity.3 By dismantling regulatory institutions and state-centered development policies, including social security policies, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc paves the way for the global institutionalization of markets. This empowers neoliberalism profoundly, a project that grows market-based, commodified social relations through free markets, financialization, and privatization.4 However, neoliberal transformation of the global economic political system has created increasing inequality and declining resilience by growing poverty. The neoliberal subjects encounter increasingly conditional employment and descending pressure on wages. Hence, states compete to attract capital by liberalizing private activities such as attracting material and financial investments at the expense of increasing climate-related risks. In addition, neoliberalism hinders social cohesion and forces the individuals into loneliness.5 In other words, neoliberalism leads to profound vulnerability for subjects, who in turn lose their organizing capability and remain singularized. 1

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Introduction

In this respect, neoliberal subjects became vulnerable from the effects of neoliberalism, and they try to emancipate from the crises stemming from the outcomes of the sociopolitical and economic system. Thus, neoliberal subjects can either apply resilience or resistance, or can apply both of them, in order to protect themselves from their vulnerability. Turkey, as an emerging market and one of the early cases of neoliberal restructuring initiated in the mid-1980s, has intensely integrated itself into neoliberal capitalism. However, the country, located in the semi-periphery world, has always had problems of having the limitations of a model of economic growth patterning on short-term capital inflows. In this respect, Turkey has always had a need for foreign borrowing in that industrialization, privatization, and heavy urbanization always have been the core instruments to access capital and to pay debts.6 This growth-based neoliberal model glorifies markets that lead to the economization of state and society, implanting the logic of market to all spheres of life. This perspective leads to a “strong, interventionist and entrepreneurial”7 state whose primary mission is to preserve this system by hindering welfare state practices, eroding social security of labors, and damaging nature for creating capital sources. This situation has explicit effects on neoliberal subjects in Turkey, and it generally leads them to stay in resilience and sometimes to perform resistance in every sphere of life. This book will evaluate how neoliberal subjects existing in various socioeconomic groups respond to neoliberal uncertainties, risks, and threats in Turkey, either resilience, resistance, or both. The book predominantly is based on two symbiotic axes. The first axis shows how global capitalism and neoliberalism affect neoliberal subjects and their environment from different perspectives. The second reveals how neoliberal subjects execute resilience/resistance to survive against the vulnerabilities created by neoliberalism and its agents. The book demonstrates how the resilience/resistance of neoliberal subjects makes them political. To put it another way, it addresses the following questions: a.  What are the factors that force vulnerable groups to execute either resilience/resistance or both? b.  What are the political strategies of resistance/resilience that vulnerable groups in Turkey employ? The book analyzes vulnerable groups’ resistance and resilience strategies, as well as the impact of neoliberal penetration on these groups in Turkey. This study argues that global insecurities resulting from neoliberalism and globalism have left the entire society insecure. In this vein, the study provides readers with insight into how the interaction of neoliberalism and vulnerable group resistance shapes the socioeconomic sphere and politics in the future.

Introduction

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The book demonstrates this by focusing on resistance and resilience from a variety of perspectives, including environmental groups, social classes, social media, and gender. In this respect, this study is constituted with five chapters. In the first chapter, Senem Kurt Topuz analyzes people’s self-perception about their socioeconomic status in Turkey by conducting in-depth interviews. The study then focuses on people defining themselves as poor for understanding how they experience poverty and on what kind of resilience strategies they have developed both in economic and psychological terms within the axis of neoliberalism and global insecurities. Dr. Kurt Topuz conducts in-depth interviews with thirty people, including males and females who are older than eighteen years old, residing in Bolu, a city which is located between two metropolitan areas: Istanbul and the capital of Ankara. In chapter 2, Pınar and Çağlar Enneli analyze the impact of growing inequality on middle class in Turkey. For them, the most visible and striking consequence of neoliberal economic policies is growing inequality together with increasing poverty. However, most studies focus on being poor while ignoring the issue of becoming poor. Their chapter suggests that the deteriorating conditions of wage earners may add some meaning to poverty as a way of tracking changes in the possibilities of having desirable products, such as cars and houses. To analyze middle-class responses to the current economic crisis in Turkey, it will focus on discussions on Sour Dictionary (Ekşi Sözlük), a recent internet platform in which several issues are defined and redefined to some extent humorously by different anonymous users as a way of resilience and resistance. They will argue that, in Weberian terms, it is time to speak of poverty in Turkey in a broader context by following and analyzing these discussions. On a discursive level, changes in the prices of staple products lead to a comfortable and familiar narrative of resistance. However, discussing expanded poverty may lead to different resistance strategies. By conducting a narrative analysis of social media entries on poverty, we hope to focus on the narrations of narrowed-down hope for possessions of desired consumption in this article. In the third chapter, Selcan Serdaroğlu Polatay evaluates environmental movements from the perspective of resistance. According to the author, the will to defend nature and livelihood as a civic act is paradoxically the cause of political exclusion by dominant actors. The marginalied defender can be an urban dweller concerned about irreversible environmental damage and claiming ecological citizenship, or a peasant living in harmony with the ecosystem. While their understanding of the human-nature relationship is crucial in defining their agency, their threat perceptions (environmental injustice, ecocide, health risks, cultural alienation, subsistence, political representation, and participation obstacles) have an impact on the strategies and modes of

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Introduction

action they employ, which range from using existing legal instruments to creating a new political sphere. The study uses environmental movement initiatives in the Eastern Thrace as an illustrative case after schematizing Turkey’s current movements. In the fourth chapter, Marella Bodur Ün evaluates anti-gender perspectives and policies of the neoconservative party, the Justice and the Development Party. She focused on one such perceived threat, “gender ideology,” that has generated anxiety and fear, leading to the emergence of “anti-gender” campaigns and movements around the globe, threatening gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights. The analysis focuses on the Turkish context, where anti-gender, anti-feminist, and pro-family conservative discourses and policies adopted by successive Justice and Development Party governments over the past fifteen years have increasingly negated gender equality legislation and policies. The analysis reveals how the Justice and Development Party government’s project of masculinist restoration has resulted in contradictions, tensions, and resistance in women’s lives. Rasim Özgür Dönmez’s chapter attempts to demonstrate how neoliberalism affects neoliberal subjects by making them vulnerable, and how and why neoliberal subjects choose resistance and/or resilience and engage in mutual assistance, particularly in neoliberal times around the world and in post-2010 Turkey in particular. The chapter argues that a neoliberal subject is political by nature and can manifest as a potential resistor during times of crisis for the sake of its benefits rather than transforming the neoliberal system by constructing and reinforcing permanent socioeconomic structures and networks. Dönmez uses a national historical event (civil unrest) that had a significant impact on Turkish society as case studies: the Gezi Park protests held on May 28, 2013, initially to oppose urban development. The chapter will argue that the neoliberal self, or resilient self, is a political entity by nature that can easily be converted to a resistor when it feels insecure. NOTES 1. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” National Interest 16, no. 1 (1989): 3–18. 2. David Chandler and Julian Reid, The Neoliberal Subject: Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 2. 3. Ibid, 2–3. 4. See David Neilson, “Bringing in the ‘Neoliberal Model of Development,’” Capital and Class 44, no. 1 (2020): 85–108.

Introduction

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5. Glenn Fieldman, “Neoliberalism, The Production of Vulnerability and The Hobbled State: Systemic Barriers to Climate Adaptation,” Climate and Development 3, no. 2 (2011): 159–71. 6. Ziya Öniş, “Varieties and Crises of Neoliberal Globalisation: Argentina, Turkey and the IMF,” Third World Quarterly 27, no. 2 (2006): 239–40. 7. Luca Mavelli, “Citizenship for Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 484.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Chandler, David, and Reid, Julian. The Neoliberal Subject: Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Fieldman, Glenn. “Neoliberalism, The Production of Vulnerability and The Hobbled State: Systemic Barriers to Climate Adaptation.” Climate and Development 3, no. 2 (2011): 159–71. Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” National Interest 16, no. 1 (1989): 3–18. Mavelli, Luca. “Citizenship for Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging.” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 482–93. Neilson, David. “Bringing in the ‘Neoliberal Model of Development.’” Capital and Class 44, no. 1 (2020): 85–108. Öniş, Ziya. “Varieties and Crises of Neoliberal Globalisation: Argentina, Turkey and the IMF.” Third World Quarterly 27, no. 2 (2006): 239–40.

Chapter One

Neoliberalism and Subjective Poverty in Turkey Strategies of Resilience against Poverty in the Middle Class Senem Kurt Topuz

INTRODUCTION In the 1980s, a stronger and more effective wave was added to the transformation process experienced by Western economies after the 1970s. This wave that was also called the wave of neoliberal economic policies and it added a different outlook to the political and economic structure of the world.1 To reach the highest level of welfare, neoliberalism theoretically advocates liberalizing individual entrepreneurship, guaranteeing property rights, promoting the practice of free trade, and making the market, not the state, the main determinant in economic decisions.2 Neoliberal policies that affect the world economy deeply, in particular, as of the 1980s, put forward the thesis that privatizations will be accelerated, taxes will be reduced at large proportions, the use of monetarist policies will be allowed to put inflation under control even if they increase inflation, and the state will be downscaled along with cuts in public expenses. Additionally, for the sake of developing international markets, these policies require the removal of controls. To implement these practices, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank urge developing countries to apply neoliberal policies through funds extended by them to developing countries.3 Chief actors of the global world demand, for their self-interests, the reduction of the role of the social 7

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state, the ascendance of market economy, the promotion of privatization, the restriction of labor organizations, the removal of all legal barriers confronting multinational companies, and the opening of new areas that are likely to yield profits for the international capital.4 Consequently, this transformation process brought about a rise in welfare, wealth, and prosperity in a group of countries while it led to an increase in poverty, polarization, and income inequality in another group of countries, and hence, the gap between developed and developing countries grew.5 In this context, it is necessary to underline three significant consequences of neoliberal economic policies. The first of these consequences is that employment does not grow in parallel to economic growth; rather, at the same time, unemployment increases. The second consequence is that the real wages of workers do not go up but go down despite the growth in production and productivity. Lastly, the third consequence is the advent of the minimal state that withdraws from the social policy area. To summarize, unemployment, cheap labor, and the elimination of social programs come to the fore as three fundamental issues that produce poverty. This situation noticeably demonstrates the presence of a direct relationship between neoliberal economic globalization and poverty.6 In other words, the changes occurring in labor markets along with the globalization process play a crucial role in the growth of global poverty. Along with the development of automation technologies and the global economy that is oriented to the services sector, numerous people either became unemployed or were forced to work low-paying temporary or part-time jobs without any social security.7 If the relationship between neoliberalism and poverty is addressed in the context of Turkey, the first thing to be said is that the 1980s was a structural transformation period for Turkey, as well. In accordance with the decisions of January 24, 1980, economic policies aimed at opening Turkey to overseas markets as well as promoting the free market economy in Turkey were put into effect as dictates of policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for developing countries. In practice, the decisions of January 24, 1980, highlighted a series of liberalization periods during which real devaluation was experienced, import regime practices amounting to liberalization were put in place, and the growth in labor wages was suppressed.8 In Turkey, while a fundamental change occurred in the economic and social structure along with the economic program that was put into effect as of January 24, 1980, the economy shrank and unemployment increased following the crises that occurred one after another in the 1990s. The combined effects of the globalization process, neoliberal policies, and economic crises led a worsened income distribution, a deepened gap between different segments of society, and a rise in poverty.9 In this framework, it can be asserted that structural adjustment, privatization, and neoliberal economic policies, as

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well as the poverty problem that grew progressively based on these issues, were among the main reasons for the emergence of studies about poverty in Turkey.10 On the other hand, along with the commodification resulting from neoliberal globalization, everything is reduced to a commodity and is subjugated to market forces. Henceforth, commodification penetrates every area of life such as the family, the education system, companies, labor institutions, social protection policies, unemployment, disability, professional groups, and politics. At this point, while the price is determined by supply and demand, the consideration of the worker’s demands, needs, and expectations, that is, the worker’s capacity to be resilient, is no longer in place. The political action/ resilience of workers is eliminated as workers are put under control upon being disciplined in a multifaceted manner, in particular, by being impoverished alongside low-paid and nonproductive employment.11 In this context, this study endeavored to understand how individuals, whose capacity to take part in political action against poverty or be resilient against it was eliminated in connection with neoliberal policies, have stayed resilient against poverty individually and how they have coped with poverty both economically and psychologically. Accordingly, this study also analyzes how people in Turkey define the concept of poverty in the context of neoliberalism and global insecurities, whether they define themselves as poor or not, and what sort of a coping strategy they develop against poverty or how they stay resilient12 against poverty both economically and psychologically if they define themselves as poor. The aforementioned analysis takes place based on the field study conducted between November 2022 and January 2023 in the province of Bolu, located in the Western Black Sea Region of Turkey and between two metropolitan cities, Ankara and Istanbul. At the specified dates, fifteen men and twenty women with different characteristics in terms of age, marital status, education and income level, and household size were interviewed. The aim of this study, which is to understand the types of resilience strategies developed against poverty by individuals based only on data obtained with a field study, is associated with the discussion of the concept of poverty in the context of the concept of subjective poverty. This is because explanations and analyses of poverty that are solely based on the income and expenditures of individuals for understanding objective poverty are inadequate for understanding different strategies developed by individuals to stay resilient against the consequences of poverty. Therefore, to understand how individuals define poverty, how they experience poverty, and how they stay resilient against the consequences of poverty in this context, it is needed to directly utilize the views of individuals.

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In Turkey, poverty measurements are made on the basis of income or expenditure as in the case of numerous countries, and efforts to calculate thresholds and rates of poverty are made by the Turkish Statistical Institute. The most fundamental data source of studies about poverty is research on household income and consumption expenses that collects data about income levels, expenditure levels, and social conditions of households in Turkey.13 In this study, the analysis included the income and expenditure levels of individuals, and thus, absolute poverty criteria together with their about whether they subjectively viewed themselves as poor or impoverished. This is because poverty is a social phenomenon, and this unavoidably means that poverty has a psychological dimension.14 Besides affecting individuals socially, the challenging life experiences of poor individuals have an impact that also challenges their physical and spiritual wellbeing.15 Hence, data obtained from economic measurements cannot provide much information about the psychological impacts of poverty on the individual. Consequently, it is necessary to make use of the subjective evaluations of individuals on the topic of poverty. As stated by Bauman,16 the phenomenon of poverty does not mean only poverty and physical danger. Poverty is also a social and psychological situation. As the appropriateness of human life to propriety is measured by the decent living standards of the society in which the person lives, the failure to access these standards is itself a cause of trouble, sorrow, and loss of self-respect. Poverty means being deprived of everything that is accepted as a normal life. It means not being at the desired level. As a consequence of this situation, the individual does not like oneself and feels shame or guilt. Poverty also means being deprived of all opportunities that lead to a happy life in the existing society and failing to obtain what life has to offer. This, in turn, results in self-depreciation, grudges, and anger, which may include violence. Thus, poverty is a phenomenon that individuals should be resilient against or cope with, and this first requires psychological resilience. Psychological resilience is the ability to exhibit cognitively positive behaviors by eliminating the effect of negative circumstances producing stress17; cope with multiple negative circumstances such as obstacles, difficulties, and uncertainty and succeed in the end18; and adapt to challenges, recover at the end of challenging periods, and exhibit positive changes.19 Staying strong in the face of unexpected events or undesired circumstances and overcoming them may not necessarily be easy for every individual. One’s past living standards and experiences acquired across their lifespan guide the individual’s behaviors in the face of such events. Being happy with what is granted as one’s right, being content with what one has, overcoming difficult times, or interpreting unfortunate circumstances more positively are certain significant characteristics of individuals that reflect their approaches to events. In this context, the topic

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of this study is to understand how people stay resilient against poverty as an unexpected and undesired circumstance. Accordingly, this article consists of three main parts. In the first part, the concept of poverty and its relationship to neoliberalism are discussed. In the second part, the concept of resilience and its relationship to the concept of poverty are examined. The third part provides detailed information on the field study and describes the analyses of the data obtained in the field study in detail. The conclusion section includes discussions of the data obtained in the field study in relation to theoretical explanations regarding the concepts of poverty and resilience. THE CONCEPT OF POVERTY AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO NEOLIBERALISM The first thing to do in a study under the theme of poverty is to introduce a poverty definition that includes certain criteria to identify who is poor in society.20 Nevertheless, it is quite hard to find a definition of poverty on which there is a consensus. It is discerned that the definitions of poverty change over time and from one social structure to another, each of which has different value systems based on its viewpoints on the poor. However, it can be stated that in the most general sense, definitions of poverty are addressed on the basis of objective and subjective approaches. In this sense, absolute and relative poverty criteria are used as objective criteria in the definition of objective poverty, and poverty analyses basically rest on the objective approach. On the other hand, it is observed that the interest in the conceptualization of subjective poverty, which is based on the subjective approach, has also increased recently. The thought that the views of impoverished individuals should be taken into account in the creation of policies to fight poverty lies undoubtedly among the reasons for this growing interest in the concept of subjective poverty.21 Townsend22 defines relative poverty as the case in which a person can meet basic needs in absolute terms; however, they remain below the general welfare level of society, and accordingly, they are prevented from participating in society in the social and cultural sense. Absolute poverty covers households that have incomes and expenses below a certain threshold specified with reference to the general level in society.23 Regarding absolute poverty, while Lipton24 defines poverty as the case in which the private consumption per capita remains below a certain level, Drewnowski25 defines it as the case in which individuals do not have a sufficient income to satisfy themselves or meet their minimum needs.

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There is a chance that no one could be considered poor in a society according to the concept of absolute poverty. However, when the matter is addressed in relative terms, there will always be a segment of society that is poor. On the other hand, the shortcomings of these two definitions have led researchers to the development of criteria to identify a new definition26 and a new poverty threshold.27 In contrast to the objective poverty approach that is amalgamated with the concepts of relative poverty and absolute poverty, subjective poverty is an approach where individuals determine the standards which are necessary for them to be able to live their lives based on their perceptions and thoughts. With this aspect, subjective poverty is different from absolute poverty which is determined by a third party.28 Hence, subjective poverty relates to poverty that is perceived by individuals themselves.29 One of the disadvantages of poverty definitions proposed in the context of the objective poverty approach is that the circumstances of those feeling poor despite having an adequate income or those not feeling poor despite sustaining life under the poverty threshold cannot be evaluated. The objective poverty approach ignores the individual’s perceptions of poverty. Individuals can have different perceptions of the same situation that is defined objectively. The subjective poverty approach departs from the point that the thoughts of individuals should be taken into consideration to be able to understand their welfare levels. Additionally, the subjective poverty approach emphasizes that the extent of poverty that is experienced by individuals depends on how individuals evaluate their living conditions.30 İnsel31 states that studies based on the definition of subjective poverty find interesting results showing that subjective poverty is higher in rich countries, and people view themselves as poorer. In surveys conducted in impoverished countries, it was discerned that a part of the people who were actually absolutely poor did not define themselves as poor upon being asked whether they were rich or poor because, around them, there was nobody rich, and accordingly, they were unable to make a comparison. Poverty can also define an individual vis-à-vis another individual, similar individuals, and individuals around the individual. Undoubtedly, none of these definitions is more accurate than the other. These definitions present only a methodological groundwork about how to approach the phenomenon of poverty. Sometimes, they can even be complementary to each other. Thus, in this study, the analysis process includes the income and expenditure levels of individuals and absolute poverty criteria together with the answers of individuals about whether they subjectively view themselves as poor or impoverished because one of the advantages of subjective poverty measurements is that these measurements reveal that people or groups characterized by a researcher as poor do not sometimes view themselves as poor, or vice versa. Moreover, there are individuals who would not view

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themselves as poor despite being under the poverty threshold and even under the hunger threshold in several countries including Turkey where the culture of being thankful to God, being content with what is available in hand, and being a predestinarian is prevalent.32 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEOLIBERALISM AND POVERTY Globalization is accepted as the most significant factor that prompts poverty to expand and deepen not only in developing countries but also in developed countries. Especially along with globalization, neoliberal policies in these countries lead to the inexorable growth of the income gap between the rich and the poor, the extreme rise in unemployment rates, and the imposition of limitations on public services.33 At the current point, it is discerned that in the world’s population, 736 million people are extremely poor, while 1.3 billion people suffer multidimensional poverty. Furthermore, 644 million people out of all people living in poverty are aged below 18 years. Besides, 84.3 percent of people with income levels below 1.90 US dollars per day live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.34 Upon the review of the Human Development Index, it should not be concluded that poverty is a problem solely for developing countries. The problem of poverty continues to exist in developed countries as well. In European countries, 21.4 percent of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion.35 Millar et al.36 asserts that the growth in the number of those suffering from poverty arises from three factors that are connected to each other. The first one among these factors is a significant level of unemployment, the second factor is low wages, and the third factor is the rise in precarious or flexible employment. The globalization process is in an organic relationship, first of all, with neoliberal policies that serve the globalization of capital. As the driving force of the globalization process, neoliberalism, which primarily reflects the interests of the global capital and transnational companies, helps expand global capital at the world scale and deepen capital markets. From this perspective, the liberalization and deregulation of the international goods trade and financial capital movements lead to the diminution of obligations of the state in the social and economic lives of individuals.37 In other words, the acceleration of structural adjustment policies such as privatization, localization, de-unionization, and precaritization led to the contraction of the sphere of influence of the welfare state.38 These developments and the progressively shrinking sphere of influence of the welfare state gave rise to a transformation also in the question of poverty and social policies. Precarious, uninsured, and flexible working policies of neoliberalism gave rise to radical changes in the

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lives of workers in contrast to the welfare state where workers used to have permanent jobs and regular incomes, and their pension plans were guaranteed.39 While the implementation of flexible employment policies in work life was advantageous to the capital, it increased the risk of unemployment and poverty for individuals. This situation created a process where it was common to have deregulated, precarious, and de-unionized work at a low wage, and a large part of the working class was pushed into poverty.40 In particular, precarity is a significant cause of poverty with its impacts such as reducing wages to very low levels that will not meet the needs of workers, promoting the informal economy, and increasing mass unemployment. Indeed, it can be argued that there is a reciprocal relationship between poverty and precarity. Thus, poverty also creates and aggravates precarity, and at this point, both poverty and precarity have turned into a global problem.41 Today, it is also evident that precarious employment,42 which is another term associated with precarity, and poverty are two fundamental phenomena that affect each other. While individuals may have to work in precarious jobs because they are poor, they may also stay poor because they work in precarious and nonsecure jobs. The limited access of the impoverished to basic needs such as education, health, and housing may push them toward working in the informal sector.43 Another important point is that due to neoliberal capitalism, the financial markets have reached the capacity to dominate economies and societies in a way to continuously worsen the living conditions of the poor.44 In this context, the concept of precarity refers to the state giving up on its ideological promises to regulate things that are necessarily created by the capitalism of poverty. The state seeks to transfer the responsibility to keep the prosperity of its citizens above a certain standard as much as possible. At the same time, firms lead to a regression in the realization of security, pension, and other rights and a predisposition of their employees to economic risks.45 In approximately the last quarter century, several changes have occurred in working life in parallel with the increased influence of globalization, the development of information technologies, the replacement of the manufacturing sector with the services sector, and demographic developments. These changes have directly influenced working hours, the usage of new technologies, the implementation of flexible job contracts, and the structure of labor, and they have caused precarious jobs to replace a standard employment relationship.46 Turkey also did not, or could not, keep out of this change and transformation process. Turkey joined the globalization process with the neoliberal economic programs it implemented in the 1980s.47 The policies regarding the labor market in the international expansion process of Turkey are mainly based on making this market flexible. The main practices that make the labor market flexible

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include prevalent privatization practices, the weakened regulatory role of the state in the labor market, the transformation of jobs from permanent statuses into limited or temporary statuses, increased informal economy, the weakened collective bargaining capacity of unions, the higher prevalence of free trade areas that involve significant exemptions regarding workers’ rights, and obstacles to unionization. All these practices pave the way for negative outcomes not only in the field of relationships of sharing but also in terms of the working conditions of workers.48 Precarious labor is the main part of these unfavorable conditions. As in most of the world, precarious labor in Turkey has also become prevalent with the transition to neoliberal economic policies. In this sense, precarious labor is an outcome of the transformation experienced in the capital accumulation regime. In this process, which started with the decisions on January 24, 1980, and aimed to minimize the individual and social cost of labor, deregulation and social insecurity49 became the main instruments that would allow the Turkish economy to get involved in the international division of labor.50 One may state that the structure of the labor market in Turkey at the beginning of the twenty-first century resembled the European countries of the Industrial Revolution era. As a product of the neoliberal policies that were implemented, the industrial reserve army continuously grew, and there emerged a substantial increase in intensified poverty, regression in real wages, excessively long working hours, lack of social security rights, and workplace accidents that result in mortalities and permanent incapacitation.51 Moreover, it is also clear that the world is facing an economic crisis that will also affect Turkey. Although it has been more ten 10 years since the financial crisis that started in US stock exchanges in 2008, in this process, uprising movements that started in countries in North Africa and the Middle East which were called the Arab Spring, the mass migrations created by these uprisings, regional conflicts including the war between Russia and Ukraine as the latest example, and global outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic have led to significant impacts that have deepened the economic crisis.52 Although the economic growth in Turkey in the period of 2013 to 2017 appeared to increase, it is also seen that unemployment, inflation, exchange rates, and interest rates increased, and per capita income decreased. That is, despite the realization of growth, fundamental problems in the economy persisted.53 High inflation is a major one among these problems. According to the latest report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in August 2022, Turkey has one of the highest inflation rates (80.2 percent)54 among all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.55

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Inflation does not refer to an independent increase in the price of a specific good or service, but it describes a continuous increase in the general levels of prices in a broad set of goods and services. Therefore, high inflation lowers the purchasing power of the currency. As a result of this, inflation harms the low-income part of society more and raises impoverishment. In the inflationist environment, while those who have the opportunity to save utilize high real interest rates, income inequality increases further because the lower-income proportion of society does not have this opportunity. Individuals participate in daily life less and less, and deprivation rises.56 The tangible indicators of these developments can be found in the results of the Income and Living Conditions Study for 2021 by the Turkish Statistical Institute. According to the results of the Turkish Statistical Institute, the share of the 20 percent with the highest income levels in Turkey in the total income of the country was 46.7 percent, while the share of the lowest income group was 6.1 percent. The Gini coefficient, which indicates more income equality as it approaches 0 and more income inequality as it approaches 1, was 0.401 in Turkey in 2021. Considering the relationships between inflation, income distribution, and persistent poverty, the survey results of 2021 indicate that the rate of persistent poverty in Turkey increased by 0.1 point in comparison to the previous year57 and reached 13.8 percent. It was stated by 60.8 percent of households that they were financially unable to cover the expenses of a week-long vacation far from their homes, whereas 38.3 percent of households stated that they could not afford to have food containing red meat, chicken, or fish every two days, 33.4 percent said they could not cover unexpected expenses, 20.5 percent said they could not cover the heating costs of their homes, and 62.9 percent said they could not afford to renew their worn furniture.58 THE CONCEPT OF RESILIENCE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO POVERTY In fact, the concept of poverty is a worldwide problem in the context of the deprivation that it implies. Unless this deprivation is eliminated, it can lead to another human condition such as hopelessness, and this, in turn, can lead individuals to think that people have no control over their lives. This way of thinking, in return, produces a situation that undoubtedly weakens individuals and prevents them from realizing their opportunities. This phenomenon, which can be considered the psychological dimension of poverty, is closely connected with human autonomy and freedom. Poverty affects an individual’s autonomy because it restricts their choices and life plans.59

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Likewise, Rahnema,60 who moved the concept of poverty beyond its economic dimension, referred to poverty as a situation that actually should be coped with or be resilient against upon defining it as a state of involuntary or voluntary, permanent or temporary weakness, dependence, and degradation characterized by the lack of resources, power, and social importance, which change across periods and societies, as well as the absence of money, impact, technical quality, inborn honor, intellectual ability, individual liberty, and prestige. Rowntree61 defined poverty with its sociopsychological characteristics as a cultural atmosphere that urges an individual to get distanced from all parts of life due to financial difficulties and considered poverty, in individual terms, an indicator of failure to hold on to life, and in physiological terms, an expression of the struggle to survive. A report by the World Health Organization62 indicated that circumstances that could be considered among poverty indicators such as low education levels, insufficient income, and unhealthy housing conditions were associated with mental diseases. Accordingly, it was stated that disadvantaged people were more vulnerable to mental diseases due to feeling insecure, feeling hopeless, and experiencing fast social changes. Hence, mental health, which was conceptualized based on components such as happiness, self-esteem, proficiency, coping capacity, and psychological resilience, was defined as a state of wellbeing where individuals realized their own abilities, could cope with the normal stress of life, could work productively, and could make contributions to society, and its association with the individual’s resilience was emphasized. The English word resilience comes from the Latin word “resilire” (jump back) and has two basic definitions. While the first one means that a person can tolerate hard conditions or can recover fast, the second refers to the person’s ability to recover easily and quickly from misfortune or disease.63 In this context, resilience contains cognitive, emotional, and social competencies that enable the person to cope with circumstances involving change or uncertainty.64 Psychological resilience is an important net asset as it allows individuals to adapt to challenging situations more easily and get out of such situations especially in difficult times thanks to the possession of these competencies. Psychological resilience is also a protective factor that lowers the pressure created by challenging conditions on individuals,65 and these factors are associated with the idea that adults who are exposed to a devastating event will maintain a relatively stable level of psychological and physical functionality.66 This functionality is also accompanied by a process requiring active participation that enables the individual to cope strongly with a challenging situation, develop in the face of a challenge, and become resilient.67 Just as every individual’s outlook toward events is different, resilience also differs from individual to individual. The previous living conditions

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of individuals, their life experiences, and their education help them work in harmony with their environments and overcome difficult situations they encounter.68 In this context, numerous factors such as age, living environment, and education have a significant effect in making the individual resilient. However, whether individuals are naturally endowed with this quality as of birth or turn out to be resilient individuals along with the experiences and education acquired by them throughout their lives is still a debated issue according to the results of previous studies on resilience.69 What is clear outside this debate is that psychological resilience is positively affected by factors such as self-control, a positive perspective, optimism, and perceived social support.70 People who have an important place in an individual’s life such as their parents, spouse, significant other, friends, family, teachers, relatives, neighbors, and experts constitute a source of social support for the individual. It was stated that social support sources provided individuals with different forms of support, and among these forms of support, material support, emotional support, and mental support were the most highlighted ones. Material support refers to the acts performed or resources supplied by others so that daily responsibilities can be fulfilled (e.g., lending money or property, providing employment opportunities). Emotional support meets a person’s basic social needs such as love, compassion, respect, empathy, and the sense of belonging to a group. Mental support covers behaviors such as providing the individual with information, advice, and guidance about personal problems and problems encountered in one’s environment.71 The most important function of social support is that it serves as a buffer zone by alleviating or balancing psychological damages inflicted by stressful events and ongoing challenges of life.72 Besides, all factors such as having a high internal locus of control, being experienced and skilled in a job, having self-efficacy, having self-respect, and having optimism are types of personality factors that contribute to psychological resilience. The brain structure that develops in challenging settings at an early age can lead to a higher level of psychological resilience by boosting the functionality of the brain and affecting neurobiological systems.73 On a macro level, social factors such as better education, satisfactory public services, cultural factors, spirituality, and a peaceful and healthy environment also give rise to psychological resilience. Individuals with high psychological resilience are people who are successful in coping with difficult situations, adapting to challenging conditions, and developing constantly.74

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METHOD This study aims to analyze how people in Turkey define poverty, whether they define themselves as poor, and what types of coping strategy they develop against poverty or how they are resilient against poverty both economically and psychologically if they define themselves as poor. Female and male individuals who were living in the province of Bolu in Turkey and were aged older than eighteen years formed the population. In this respect, snowball sampling, which is a nonrandom sampling method, was used in sample selection. In the snowball sampling method, a judgmental selection process was utilized to ensure the diversity of participants in terms of demographic characteristics such as gender, age, education level, and income level. In this context, in-depth interviews were held with thirty-five participants.75 Among the thirty-five individuals who were interviewed, twenty were women and fifteen were men. The ages of the participants varied between twenty-two and sixty-eight years. Based on their self-reports, twenty-four of the participants were married, ten were single, and one was widowed. While five of the participants had primary school degrees, two had middle school degrees, twelve had high school degrees, and nine had university degrees. Additionally, seven participants had graduate (master’s or doctorate) degrees. The participants included not only individuals who had a disposable household income lower than 6,400 Turkish liras per month but also those who had a disposable household income in the range of 38,401 to 44,800 Turkish liras. Most of the participants, who had different socioeconomic levels, had a household income of 9,200 to 12,801 Turkish liras. The number of individuals living in the households of most participants was four per household. The participants were not categorized based on their occupations, but they were categorized based on their economic activity statuses. In this context, twenty of the participants were working, five were looking for jobs, four were retired, five were homemakers, and one was in the “other” category. The data collection process took place on a face-to-face basis in a period which was well-suited to the participants and in a setting which the participants found appropriate and comfortable. During the interview process, the researcher acted as the moderator and recorded the answers given by the interviewees. At the end of the interview process, to ensure the confirmation of the data by the participants, the responses of each participant were summarized by the researcher for them, and the participants were asked individually to express their thoughts about the accuracy of their answers. A semi-structured interview form was prepared in this study that was conducted with a qualitative research design. The first part of the interview form

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contained questions about the demographic characteristics of the participants including age, gender, education level, marital status, employment status, and income level. In the second part of the interview form, the questions, “How did the general economic situation change in Turkey in the last year?” and, in a similar vein, “How did your individual economic situation change in Turkey in the last year?” were directed to the participants. Lastly, in the third part of the interview form, the open-ended questions “How do you define poverty?” “Do you think that you are poor, or do you feel impoverished?” and “How do you stay resilient against poverty both economically and psychologically?” were directed to the participants. The demographic data of the participants and their answers to the questions designed to find out about their evaluations of their general economic circumstances were analyzed based on frequency values, which are presented in tables. Answers that were given by the participants to the open-ended questions about how they defined poverty and how they stayed resilient against it were analyzed with the descriptive analysis method based on themes that were created and finalized upon the collection of expert opinions. RESULTS Demographic Characteristics Participants were categorized demographically based on their self-reports about their age, gender, marital status, education level (the highest level of school completed by the participant), household size (the number of persons in the household), monthly average disposable income of the household, and current employment status (working, looking for a job, retired, occupied with housework). The data on the demographic characteristics of the participants are exhibited in Appendix 1. Evaluations about Own Financial Status and Turkish Economy In the interview form, following the questions designed to identify their demographic characteristics, the participants answered eight questions that asked them to evaluate their financial status and the status of the Turkish economy. Frequencies and percentages for each question and the respective answers of the participants are shown in the following tables. As viewed in table 1.1, a large majority of the participants (62 percent) stated that the financial statuses of their households became worse in the last year. Moreover, 28.6 percent of the participants declared that the financial

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Table 1.1. How did the financial situation of your household change in the last year? Answers It got much better. It got a little better. It remained the same. It worsened a little. It worsened a lot. Total

Frequency 1 2 10 15 7 35

Percentage 2.9 5.7 28.6 42.9 20.0 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

statuses of their households remained the same in the last year. A result that draws attention in table 1.1 was that a very small part of the participants (8.6 percent) told the researchers that the financial statuses of their households got better over the last year. Table 1.2 was prepared based on the views of the participants about the economic conditions of Turkey in the last year. Among their answers, most participants (71.4 percent) stated that the economic conditions of Turkey worsened a lot in the last year. If this percentage is added to the percentage of the participants saying that the economic conditions of Turkey worsened a little in the last year (20 percent), it can also be asserted that almost all participants (91.4 percent) thought the economic conditions of Turkey worsened in the last year. As seen in table 1.3, it was discerned that the expenses of the majority of the participants (74.3 percent) on semi-durable consumer goods decreased in the last three months. On the other hand, 20 percent of the participants stated that their expenses on semi-durable consumer goods increased in the last three months. As seen in table 1.4, considering the general economic circumstances in Turkey, most participants (80 percent) stated that this period was not a suitable time to make savings. On the other hand, 17.2 percent of the participants told the researchers that this period and the general economic conditions in Turkey were suitable to make savings. As seen in table 1.5, displaying the data on how the participants defined the financial statuses of their households based on their saving levels, the majority of the participants (62.9 percent) declared that they barely made ends meet with their incomes. Among all participants, 11.5 percent said they could make savings, and 17.1 percent reported that they spent their existing savings to make ends meet, and 8.6 percent stated that they took loans to make ends meet. The results shown in table 1.6 indicate that all participants thought consumer prices increased too much in Turkey in the last year.

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Table 1.2. How did the financial status of Turkey change in the last year? Answers

Frequency

It got much better. It remained the same. It worsened a little. It worsened a lot. I have no idea. Total

Percentage

1 1 7 25 1 35

2.9 2.9 20.0 71.4 2.9 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

Table 1.3. How did your expenses on semi-durable consumer goods (e.g., clothes, shoes, kitchenware) change in the last three months? Answers They They They They They Total

increased significantly. increased a little. remained the same. decreased a little. decreased significantly.

Frequency

Percentage

6 1 2 12 14 35

17.1 2.9 5.7 34.3 40.0 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

Table 1.4. Considering the general economic conditions in Turkey, do you think that this period is a suitable time to make savings? Answers It is certainly a suitable time. It is a suitable time. It is not a very suitable time. It is certainly not a suitable time. I have no idea. Total

Frequency

Percentage

1 5 8 20 1 35

2.9 14.3 22.9 57.1 2.9 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

Table 1.5. How do you define the financial status of your household? Answers We save a lot. We save a little. We barely make ends meet with our income. We spend our savings to make ends meet. We take loans to make ends meet. Total Source: This table is created by the contributor.

Frequency 1 3 22 6 3 35

Percentage 2.9 8.6 62.9 17.1 8.6 100.0

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Neoliberalism and Subjective Poverty in Turkey Table 1.6. How do you think consumer prices changed in Turkey in the last year? Answers They increased too much. Total

Frequency 35 35

Percentage 100 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

According to the views of the participants about how their purchasing power changed in the last years, which are summarized in table 1.7, almost all participants (94.3 percent) asserted that their purchasing power decreased in the last year. A total of 71.4 percent of the participants emphasized that their purchasing power decreased significantly. On the other hand, 5.7 percent of the participants said their purchasing power increased a little in the last year. As shown in table 1.8, 54.3 percent of the participants responded that they took loans, whereas 45.7 percent said they did not take any loans. As the answers of the participants to the questions in the second part of the interview form clearly indicated, all participants thought that consumer prices increased too much in Turkey in the last year. Most participants also shared the view that the economic conditions in Turkey worsened a lot in the last year. In addition, in the evaluations made by the participants about their own financial statuses, a large majority of the participants declared that the financial statuses of their household became worse in the last year, their expenses on semi-durable consumer goods decreased in the last three months, this period was not a suitable time for them to make savings considering the general economic situation in Turkey, they barely made ends meet with their incomes, their purchasing power decreased in the last year, and they took loans due to payment or spending difficulties in the last year. Hence, the evaluations of the participants regarding either Turkey’s or their economic circumstances were negative in general. This situation clearly demonstrated that there were problems in the general economic indicators of Turkey, and accordingly, in the Turkish citizen’s household economy. In this context, it was a significant indicator that all participants stated that consumer prices increased too much in Turkey in the last year. The increase in consumer prices and inflation can be considered a significant indicator of impoverishment in light of the fall in the purchasing power of the participants. The results that the participants took loans to sustain their lives due to either spending or payment difficulties, their expenses on clothes, shoes, kitchenware, and other items decreased, their income levels were just enough to meet their basic needs, and due to barely making ends meet, they could not make any savings from their income or allocate any source from their budgets to their needs except foodstuff, housing, and heating, were, again, indicators of the levels of poverty or impoverishment experienced by the participants. Nevertheless,

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Table 1.7. How do you think your purchasing power changed in Turkey in the last year? Answers

Frequency

It increased a little. It decreased a little. It decreased significantly. Total

Percentage

2 8 25 35

5.7 22.9 71.4 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

Table 1.8. Did you take any loan in the last year due to payment or spending difficulties (consumer loan or other types of loan)? Answers

Frequency

Yes No Total

Percentage 19 16 35

54.3 45.7 100.0

Source: This table is created by the contributor.

these indicators presented data from the objective poverty perspectives that were based on the income or spending levels of individuals. It was emphasized that this study was designed in a way to include not only the objective poverty perspective but also the subjective one. In this context, in the last part of the interview form, three open-ended questions were directed to the participants, and efforts were made, in particular, to understand how they stayed resilient against poverty and coped with impoverishment or poverty. In the interview form, the first question was “How do you define poverty?”; the second question was “Do you feel poor or impoverished? Why and how?”; the third question was “How do you stay resilient against poverty? How do you cope with poverty? Both economically and psychologically?” How Do You Define Poverty? In relation to this question, it was discerned that the vast majority of the participants defined poverty as material insufficiency or the insufficiency of income. While some participants defined poverty directly as the insufficiency of income, some others defined it indirectly, with an emphasis on the insufficiency of income based on specific expenses. Some participant responses were as follows: • The insufficiency of household income for consumption and other needs. I also consider it a hardship in making a living (P13).

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• Not having a sufficient income to meet basic needs. Being unable to buy cheese, milk, and meat and pay the rent, and having power and water cuts (due to the inability to pay the bills), for instance (P16). There were participants who did not define poverty directly in connection with material insufficiency but emphasized that money was important so that individuals could reach their targets or live humanely and in line with universal standards. For example: • Poverty is when you cannot buy what you want, you cannot have access to basic needs, and you cannot continue your life humanely and in line with universal standards (P30). • Poverty is when a person suffers deprivation in terms of the attainment of targets, mostly, material deprivation (P23). Additionally, there were participants defining poverty through abstract emotions such as spirituality or peace, happiness, and joy of living. However, during the interviews, in the last instance, these participants also expressed views in a way that defined the negative emotional states imposed on them by material insufficiency. • Poverty is being unable to be materially and spiritually satisfied, being obliged to live under the minimum conditions (P15). • The routinization of your life, loss of the joy of living, absence of peace and happiness, and becoming psychologically obsessed upon being continuously occupied with subtle details (P8). Furthermore, there were also participants defining poverty through multidimensional deprivations and variables (e.g., cultural, social). Even if the number of these participants was quite low, their education and income levels were higher than the other participants. • Having restricted access or no access to all financial, cultural, and social resources present in the country is poverty (P14). • Being unable to access existing resources, such as education, health, and housing, not only the money (P34). Eventually, while defining poverty, some participants also expressed their thoughts by making an evaluation about the cause of poverty. For instance, P29 and P7 indirectly made evaluations about the causes of poverty by defining it as a situation into which individuals fall voluntarily or due to their own fault.

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• Poverty is, in my opinion, an adjective for people who have no purpose or activity in life and go on living at a level to continue their lives that help only the wheel turn and the bourgeoisie stay in power (P29). • A very difficult situation. We wish it would not last long. However, wishing alone is not enough. Working hard is essential. If you do not work but lie around, you become poor, of course (P7). In the same context, there were also participants defining poverty and indirectly explaining the causes of poverty on political grounds. • It can be defined as our anxiety about life being at the highest level. The person’s feeling of physical and psychological insecurity can also be added to this. That all political, economic, and cultural mechanisms in society are run inadequately and ineffectively by rulers can be evaluated as the basis of poverty (P1). • Misery, having no money. Why is there no money? We work, but the money that we earn vanishes in the air, everything is so expensive. In no way, those ruling us would lower the prices. We will be like Africa. I wish the rulers would realize that (P18). As stated before, just as poverty can be related to the individual’s own abilities and personal characteristics, it can also relate to structural reasons, which are outside the individual’s control, such as economic policies and low wages. At this point, the statements of the participants are important in terms of explaining the cause of poverty, on the one hand, on personal grounds, and on the other hand, with reference to the period in which they live. This is because evaluations on the causes of poverty exhibit differences as per the country and period in which a study is conducted. In this context, there is a high number of participants emphasizing the fall in their purchasing power and considering that those in political power and their economic policies are the cause of poverty arising or growing due to high inflation. Do You Feel Poor or Impoverished? Why and How? The second open-ended question directed to the participants in the interviews was about whether they felt poor or impoverished. Unlike the first question, the second question was based on the subjective evaluations of the participants regarding whether they felt poor or impoverished. The reason for using both the word “poor” and the word “impoverished” simultaneously here was to add the change in the financial statuses of the participants to the analysis. The majority of the participants answered yes to the question, “Do you feel poor or impoverished?” However, it should be noted that among the

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participants who responded to this question as “yes,” only a few defined themselves as “poor,” while more participants defined themselves “impoverished.” Regarding the second part of the second question, “Why and how?” participants expressed their views more based on high inflation and declining purchasing power to explain how or why they were impoverished. It should be stated that during the interviews, the participants saying that they were not poor or impoverished also put emphasis on the decline in their purchasing power. Thus, from these statements, it can be concluded that an indirect impoverishment process was in place. In this context, regardless of age, gender, and education or income level, a large majority of the participants generally felt impoverished during the process due to the economic conditions of Turkey. A portion of the participants even directly declared that they felt impoverished due to the economic conditions of Turkey by highlighting a specific period. Some participant responses were as follows: • Yes, I am poor. • I feel poor. I see that my purchasing power fell significantly, in particular, in the last few years, and I could no longer buy what I used to buy easily. For instance, instead of the cheese brand that I used to buy, I buy other brands of cheese; or I do not buy sports shoes of well-known brands any longer, instead, I buy low-quality shoes (P30). • I can say that I am poor. I feel that my purchasing power is falling. If price increases continue, poverty is inevitable after all (P2). • I am not poor, but I was impoverished. • Yes, I feel so. In particular, I feel impoverished. I do not know if I define myself as poor. There are times when I often say, “thank goodness.” There are people who are worse off than us. I am not poor, but I was impoverished. Its cause is the high inflation and the high cost of living (P32). • I cannot say that I am poor, but yes, I feel impoverished. Although income levels seem to be rising on paper, now, I buy less with a high income whereas I used to buy a lot with a low income in my past shopping experiences (P8). • I feel that I have become impoverished in the last three years because I have been obliged to limit or not make several expenses necessary for me to continue my lifestyle. . . . and for me, the allocation of the budget, which was reserved for savings, to expenses in the last five years is another indicator (of impoverishment) (P14). • I do not feel that I am exactly in the category of the poor. However, I feel impoverished. The reason for this situation is, I believe, the rising inflation and the falling purchasing power in the country, in particular, in the last 3–5 years. With the same income or for the same price, I cannot buy

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the products which I could afford in previous years. At the same time, I think we are becoming impoverished as a country (P28). On the other hand, there were also participants not perceiving themselves as poor or impoverished. Even if the number of these participants was lower than those answering yes to the second question, one of them explained the economic problem of Turkey with certain justifications, said that this situation did not create impoverishment either for himself or the country, and emphasized the temporary nature of the situation. In fact, when considering the demographic characteristics of this participant, it was discerned that this participant lived in a household of six persons and had a monthly disposable household income of 12,801 to 19,200 Turkish liras. Thus, it can be put forward that he was poor according to objective poverty criteria defined in terms of income and expenditure levels.76 The identification of this point is important because, as stated before, in developed countries, the subjective poverty rate is higher, and people view themselves as poorer. In contrast, in underdeveloped or developing countries, a portion of people who are actually poor in absolute terms do not define themselves as poor. There are various reasons for this situation. These reasons can range from political reasons to the culture of being thankful to God. Some participant responses in this context were as follows: • Nope. Due to economic crises coming to the fore throughout the world along with both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War, our country also goes through a difficult phase. Prices go up. However, our state endeavors to overcome this situation by incurring a minimum amount of damage. Along with significant increases in employees’ salaries, our state does not let inflation choke people (P3). Upon an evaluation about why the participants answering no to the second question did not feel poor or impoverished, it was observed that some of these participants did not want to speak much about this matter and evaded the matter by expressing their thankfulness to God. Additionally, considering that the culture of being thankful to God, being content with what is available in hand, and being a predestinarian is common in Turkey,77 it was thought that the participants whose views are presented in the following did not view the matter of poverty from a questioning perspective in terms of its causes and consequences. Based on observations made during the interviews, it can be stated that demographic factors such as age and education also affected the perspectives adopted by these participants.

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• No, I am neither poor nor impoverished. What is important and what is to be prioritized is spirituality. Thank goodness, we have a home even if it is a rental one, our stomach is full, and we are well-clothed. We are not going to eat meat every day. We have the strength to work. If you are robustly spiritual, you do not become poor (P5). • Nope. Not that much. Thank goodness, I am [my financial status is] normal, I can buy everything, though in small amounts. Without having any luxury, I can buy everything. Thank God for today (P35). Here, an important point is that a part of the participants who answered no to the second question responded to the follow-up question, based again on purchasing power. As stated earlier, while participants stating that they were impoverished pointed to the decline in their purchasing power as a significant indicator of impoverishment, certain participants, albeit a few, did not view the decrease in their purchasing power as a criterion of poverty or impoverishment. This situation once more underscored why the understanding of subjective poverty should be included in analyses. Accordingly, some participant responses were as follows: • I do not feel poor. I feel that my purchasing power decreased (P22). • No, but we spend more carefully because everything is more expensive, I cannot buy them as I used to, and my purchasing power fell, (but) I did not become impoverished (P27). Lastly, a few participants expressed their concerns about both their future and that of Turkey by answering neither yes nor no to the second question. The following are some views of the participants generally saying that they were afraid of being impoverished not at the moment but for the future: • I do not feel poor, but I do not feel safe either. Every moment, I experience the fear of being in financial collapse (P29). • For now, I cannot say that I am poor or impoverished; however, I feel as if I have begun to become impoverished, and I am afraid of the future. . . . because economic problems across the country had a lot of negative effects on the people (P12). In fact, these problems can be accepted as a reflection of the negative economic conditions to which both the participants and Turkey had been generally exposed at the moment.

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How Do You Stay Resilient Against Poverty? How Do You Cope with Poverty? Both Economically and Psychologically? Can You Explain? Before categorically analyzing the answers given to the third open-ended question, which reflects views on the main objective of this study, it is necessary to underline that all participants taking part in the interviews, even those who did not feel poor or impoverished, provided explanations for this question. Both the participant who told the researchers that the current economic problems were temporary ones arising from international political reasons and the participant who felt having a normal financial status by expressing thankfulness to God with the assertion of being not much impoverished stated that by working more/doing extra jobs or cutting their expenses, they stayed resilient against the economic problems stemming from the decrease in their purchasing power. Thus, the participants who did not feel poor or impoverished also agreed indirectly that they were in a process of impoverishment. In the interviews, some participants wanted to emphasize, in particular, how they psychologically coped with the destruction inflicted by poverty or how they coped with their psychological problems. In this context, some participants said they tried to stay resilient against poverty and stand against it due to responsibilities felt, in general, toward members of their families, and in particular, toward their children. The following are the statements of some participants who revealed that they tried to cope with poverty by acting in a way to make their economic problems unnoticeable, in particular, to their children, trying to appear strong to their children, and enduring their problems in silence without sharing them with anyone else: • Psychologically, the loss of quality of our lifestyle is very disturbing. We try to overcome these issues without making them noticeable, in particular, to our children. Thus, I do not talk to children about poverty or tell them that we are poor. I keep quiet so that I will not allow my children to notice it, and hence, I cope (with poverty) (P9). • We tell our children that we would buy something later. We postpone everything. Of course, psychologically, this situation saddens me a lot as a father. I do not know if I can stay resilient. For our children to not feel our poverty, I have to stand upright and be strong. I cannot pull a face; I cannot complain about our situation. I endure it in silence (P31). As shown in the following, some participants stated that they tried to cope especially with the psychological problems brought about poverty with the help of their patience and their hopes that their financial problems would come to an end one day:

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• I think this situation is temporary, and I accustom myself to this thought. Otherwise, I am going to go crazy. I cut expenses that I make for myself, or I do not make them at all. I tell myself that this will also come to an end, and everything will be better, I tell myself, “patience, patience.” Thus, I force myself to remain strong, in particular, psychologically (P7). • By endeavoring to make myself believe that these bad days will end at one point, I try to cope (with poverty) (P24). The following are the statements of participants P8 and P28 endeavoring to overcome the psychological damage inflicted on them by poverty, by letting life flow or trying to stop thinking about poverty: • I try to let life flow. I try not to dwell on things that I cannot help and that I will not be able to change. I invest in myself; I try to improve myself. As I do not know what the future holds, I try to make every moment count for my maximum productivity. I cannot cope with impoverishment in any other way (P8). • To fight poverty, I need to do extra work. I also need to limit the products that I used to buy. If I psychologically trouble my mind with them, I am likely to fall into depression in a few days. If possible, I go on without troubling my mind. I need to occupy myself with other things and hope that these problems will come to an end certainly in the future (P28). In the interviews, by explaining how to cope with the material aspect of poverty, and hence, how to make ends meet under unfavorable financial situations conditions, some participants explained how they stayed resilient against poverty through concrete strategies. In this context, limiting expenses, spending existing savings, working more/doing extra jobs, taking loans, and changing shopping and living habits came to the fore as concrete resilience strategies proposed by the participants. These statements are presented as examples to each proposed strategy: Those staying resilient against poverty by limiting expenses: • My family and I make expenses only on our needs. We make our expenses carefully and cut them. We make purchases to meet our children’s needs as our first priority. We adopt more economical behaviors. By buying a little, not much, we try to avoid being faced with the risk of poverty more, we try to cope with poverty this way (P34). • By using the earned income in a balanced manner, by not overspending. . . . By making heating, energy, and water savings at home. . . . By buying little and little, buying thriftily. I buy thriftily. By buying half a kilo instead of 1 kilo. We try to cope (with poverty) by taking part in social

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settings less often or going to more economically sound settings (e.g., travel, holiday) (P16). Those staying resilient against poverty by spending their existing savings: • I try to cope (with poverty) by spending the savings that I have made for my child’s education. Being unable to adequately meet the needs of my spouse, myself, and especially my child is very saddening. I have no idea how I will support my child when the child starts studying at a university (P4). • Financially, by making more cautious expenses. Of course, when necessary, we also spend what is available in our hands. What shall we do? Instead of demanding from others or having even more financial troubles, we spend what we have saved in the good old days. Hence, we do not look to anyone, but we are saddened. These (savings) were for dark days (P27). Those staying resilient against poverty by working more/doing extra jobs: • By working more. When necessary, I even do extra jobs. I both work overtime and go to work as a painter or in the market. I work as long as I can, and I do not mind if it is just for a penny. I think that the more extra money I earn, the better we make a living, and so we do not become impoverished. My spouse is also helping (me) a lot, thanks to her. She is also working, she is also trying to do extra jobs just like me. She is doing handcrafts, for instance. We work a lot so that our children will not be poor, and in this manner, we cope with these challenging economic conditions (P5). • We work more. If you do not work as best as you can, as hard as you can, and even more, you get poorer, of course. Do you know how I stay resilient? By working more, by sweating more. We cannot do it in another way. I work at home, I do everything myself, I prepare my summer and winter food, and I take care of my children. When possible, I also do handcrafts. My spouse also works outdoors. Working can save us (P17). Those staying resilient against poverty by taking loans: • With loans. I ask for loans from my relatives to meet my needs. If my money is not enough, what shall I do? After all, I look for a job, I cannot content myself with my allowance, everything is very expensive. Then, by asking to borrow money from those that I can face, I try to live and stay resilient against poverty. Sometimes, I say I shall make

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savings from loans that I receive; for instance, I shall save (them) or buy gold (with them), but it does not work. When that is the case, I feel bad. With loans, it does not work. In my mind, I always have the question, “How can I have more money?” This, in turn, makes me feel uneasy and depressed (P13). • By economizing, we do not live a life of luxury, we have no holidays. I also hesitate to say but what shall we do, shall we commit theft? Sometimes, we get a loan when we are in much trouble. However, from whom are you going to get a loan? Everybody is in the same situation. There are times when we turn the wheel by borrowing from our relatives who will not refuse to give us loans, who will not rub it in our faces later, and who have a better financial status in comparison to us. Otherwise, how are we going to cope (with poverty)? (P18). Those staying resilient against poverty by changing shopping and living habits: • I compare prices. I buy second-hand products and products used for display in retail shops. The prices of these products are much more reasonable. They are used and second-hand products. I also buy second-hand clothes. They are much more reasonable. What will happen? They get worn again and again . . . but I make savings this way, or I meet my other needs with the price difference. In the past, we also used to pay cash in shopping. Nowadays, where is it? We continue to survive with credit cards (P11). • I go to the movie theater less often. I spare a smaller budget for activities that seem like luxuries to other people but are in my life routine. I travel less, I go shopping less, and I eat out less frequently. The things which I used to do and those that used to be a part of my normal living standards are now things that I deprive myself of. I am forced to deprive myself (of them) (P20). As well as participants speaking about how they materially and psychologically coped with the devastation inflicted by poverty, there were participants saying that they could not cope with the consequences of poverty, experienced psychological breakdowns in particular and could not cope with poverty. • I cannot cope (with poverty). It (poverty) leads to a psychological breakdown. In the mental sense, I feel hopelessness and deprivation about what I cannot access. . . . also in the material sense, I restrict every sort of thing that I buy, or I give up things that I want to have, that is, I cannot actually stay resilient (against poverty) (P23).

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• When I fail to do what I want to do or when I fail to buy what I want to buy, psychologically, my motivation falls, and I become more tense and unhappy. Hence, I cannot say that I am resilient (against poverty) (P12). Finally, there were participants who developed a multifaceted resilience strategy both economically and psychologically (operational strategy—giving up watching TV and advertisements—empathizing, being thankful for what is in hand, and having patience) against poverty and the devastation inflicted by it. For instance, the statements of P33 about this topic were quite interesting: • I watch TV less frequently. I also make my children watch TV less frequently so that they cannot see luxurious lives, lives in TV series, and subsequently, they will not crave (the things) in advertisements. I empathize with both the rich and the poor. Especially when I put myself in poor people’s shoes, I thank God most of the time. I tell myself that these days will also pass, just a little (time) is left (P33). CONCLUSION First of all, it should be noted that in this study, an analysis of the causes of poverty or the measurement of poverty in Turkey was not made, but rather, the ways in which individuals defined poverty and their evaluations about whether they subjectively felt poor were placed at the center of the analysis. In fact, what is essentially targeted in the study was to understand and explain how individuals feeling poor or impoverished coped with poverty both economically and psychologically, or in other words, how these individuals stayed resilient against poverty. In essence, poverty is an interdisciplinary phenomenon that is relevant to almost all social sciences. Poverty is an economic phenomenon if it is viewed in the context of income distribution, it is a sociological phenomenon as poor people form a different social group, and it is a psychological phenomenon as it is based not only on objective criteria but also on subjective perceptions. With its sociopsychological aspects, poverty is when the individual gets distanced from all parts of life due to financial difficulties and as a result of their partial or complete isolation from socioeconomic activities of society. In this sense, poverty can be perceived as the lack of participation in social life and an inequality of opportunities.78 In the premodern period, both being poor and helping the poor were circumstances praised by religion. Poverty was so glorified by religion that it could be a life desired despite all negative consequences. The rich would “purchase” their salvation provided that they helped the poor.79 However, in today’s modern societies, it is known that poverty experienced especially

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in the childhood period can lead to neurodevelopmental delay; social, emotional, and cognitive development problems; the development of risky behaviors; disability; health problems; and premature death.80 Considering that poverty arises most of the time along with income inequality, its physical and emotional consequences are perceived as low self-efficacy, low self-esteem, low internal locus of control, and helplessness or hopelessness.81 As also mentioned before, individuals who feel poor can have a tendency to view themselves as valueless, hold a grudge, and express anger with violence and tense behaviors. At this point, it should be stated that individuals in poverty should be able to endure difficult conditions created by poverty and cope with the change or uncertainty that arises along with poverty. In other words, individuals should alleviate the pressure imposed on them by difficult conditions that result from poverty so that they can continue to live and protect themselves both physically (e.g., against hunger or malnutrition) and psychologically. To make a general evaluation at this point based on the results of this study, the first result was that the participants generally defined poverty through objective criteria and conceptualized it more via the insufficiency of income and spending. However, as stated before, there were also participants defining poverty as deprivation, and even if the number of these participants was quite low (only two participants), their education and income levels were higher than the other participants. Hence, in cases where human development in terms of education levels and income levels is relatively high, the definition of poverty in terms of deprivation can be accepted as a more frequently observed situation. In this context, it can be put forward that poverty is considered primarily a matter of income-related poverty82 in Turkey. The concept of human poverty developed in the Human Development Report83 published in 1997 by the United Nations Development Program is based on the need to have certain economic, social, and cultural opportunities to meet basic needs as well as financial opportunities for human development and humane living. The priority placed by people in Turkey on human development and social and cultural opportunities necessary to live a life humanely is low. In other words, the priority of people in Turkey is to access the financial resources that will enable them to have necessities such as eating, clothing, and housing, rather than having social and cultural opportunities. Another result to be highlighted was that a large number of the participants feeling poor or impoverished were working full time and had certain amounts of monthly income. Here, the concept that comes forward is the concept of the working poor. The working poor is a concept that covers the poor that are economically active.84 The most reasonable economic explanation for a person to feel poor despite being economically active is that due to high

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inflation and a decrease in one’s purchasing power, the person has to borrow or take loans for their expenses. The constant rise in the prices of goods and services leads to declines in the purchasing power of those with low levels of income. High inflation rates make the poor poorer and the rich richer. Some individuals in society benefit from inflation, whereas some lose due to inflation. Theoretically, in an economy with high inflation rates, taking loans is advantageous while extending loans is disadvantageous.85 In the interviews, the emphasis placed on decreasing purchasing power jointly by both participants feeling poor or impoverished and those not feeling poor was important in this sense. It should also be noted here that the decreasing purchasing power of the person and the resulting poverty as consequences of high inflation leads to multiple emotions and reactions in the person. For example, one of these emotions is the feeling of betrayal, and this emotion causes the disruption of social harmony, damage to the concept of trust, increased concerns for the future among individuals, and the self-isolation of individuals from society. All these emotions and reactions are interrelated, and they are directly associated with high inflation and impoverishment as one of its consequences. Furthermore, the imbalance of income distribution and the increase in income inequality lead especially young people to lose hope for the future, and these issues are only a few of the negative outcomes of inflation in social life.86 Hence, the fact that the participants of this study stated their views in a way that reflected the high inflation and economic crisis conditions in the last few years in Turkey may be accepted as an indicator of the direct experience of high inflation in the lives of individuals. Finally, the participants stayed resilient against poverty psychologically by nourishing hopes for the future, having patience, letting life flow, stopping thinking about poverty, and trying to stand upright for their children while they stayed resilient against poverty economically by cutting their expenses, spending their existing savings, working more/doing extra jobs, taking loans, and changing their shopping and living habits. They also developed concrete coping strategies. It is clear that these strategies would be prepared in light of individual action plans. In other words, as stated by Şenses,87 the current approach of the World Bank besides its impractical discourse that pays lip service to poverty to a large extent aims at saving and deepening neoliberal reforms, rather than being a sincere intention to reduce poverty. The neoliberal perspective of poverty frees society in general and the state in particular from the responsibility for poverty and ties the causes of poverty to the poor themselves. Thus, in periods when the social state and its spheres of influence are downscaled, individuals are obliged to take care of themselves. This is because the ideology of neoliberal globalization has had implications on social policies via budget constraints and the gradual weakening of the

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foundations of social policies. At the same time, it is asserted that these constraints have had repercussions on society in the form of poverty.88 Among concrete strategies developed to stay resilient against poverty, the participants of this study did not talk about social aids or services that should be addressed in the context of social policies, which, in turn, indicated that the participants took care of themselves for the alleviation of the negative effects of problems arising from poverty or impoverishment. NOTES 1. Didem Gürses, “Türkiye’de Yoksulluk ve Yoksullukla Mücadele Politikaları,” Balıkesir Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 10, no. 17 (2007): 60. 2. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 3. Manfred Steger, Küreselleşme, translated by Abdullah Ersoy (Ankara: Dost Yayınları, 2004), 65. 4. Roni Margulies, “Sunuş,” in Küreselleşmeyi Anlama Kılavuzu, edited by Wayne Ellwood (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2003), 8. 5. Gürses, “Türkiye’de Yoksulluk,” 60. 6. Naciye Yıldız, “Neoliberal Ekonomik Küreselleşme ve Çocuk Yoksulluğu,” Maltepe Üniversitesi Fen Edebivat Fakültesi Dergisi 2 (2007): 85. 7. Krishan Kumar, Sanayi Sonrası Toplumdan Post-Modern Topluma, translated by Mehmet Küçük (Ankara: Dost Kitabevi, 1999), 69. 8. Gülten Kazgan, Türkiye Ekonomisinde Krizler (1929–2001): Ekonomi Politik Açısından Bir İrdeleme (İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2008), 196. 9. Gürses “Türkiye’de Yoksulluk,” 60. 10. Sibel Kalaycıoğlu and Helga Rittersberger Tılıç, “Yapısal Uyum Programlarıyla Ortaya Çıkan Yoksulluk Başetme Stratejileri,” in Kentleşme, Göç ve Yoksulluk, edited by Ahmet Alpay Dikmen (Ankara: İmaj Yayımcılık, 2002), 197. 11. Guy Standing, Prekarya: Yeni Tehlikeli Sınıf, translated by Ergin Bulut (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2014), 52. 12. It is needed to state at this point that the concept of resilience in the text refers to how individuals who define themselves as poor cope with the consequences of poverty, how they stay financially and psychologically resilient against the negative effects of these consequences, and how they hold on to life. 13. “Analitik Çerçeve, Kapsam, Tanımlar ve Sınıflamalar,” 2007, accessed November 2022, https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Kategori​/GetKategori​?p​=Gelir​,​-Yasam​,​-Tuketim​-ve​ -Yoksulluk​-107. 14. Pete Alcock, Understanding Poverty (London: Macmillan Press, 1993). 15. Derald Wing Sue and David Sue, Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2019). 16. Zygmunt Bauman, Çalışma, Tüketicilik ve Yeni Yoksullar, translated by Ümit Öktem (Ankara: Sarmal Yayınevi, 1999), 60.

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17. Michele Tugade and Barbara Fredrickson, “Resilient Individuals Use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back from Negative Emotional Experiences,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86, no. 2 (2004); Kathleen Tusaie and Janyce Dyer, “Resilience: A Historical Review of Construct,” Holistic Nursing Practice 18, no. 1 (2004). 18. Fred Luthans, Bruce Avolio, James Avey, and Steven Norman, “Positive Psychological Capital: Measurement and Relationship with Performance and Satisfaction,” Personnel Psychology 60, no. 3 (2007). 19. Thomas Britt, Winny Shen, Robert Sinclair, and Matthew Grossman, “How Much Do We Really Know About Employee Resilience?” Industrial and Organizational Psychology 9, no. 2 (2016): 380. 20. Fikret Şenses, “Neoliberal Küreselleşme Çağında Yoksulluk Araştırmalarındaki Kayıp Bağlantılar: Türkiye Deneyiminden Çıkarılacak Dersler,” in Neoliberal Küreselleşme ve Kalkınma, edited by Fikret Şenses (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2009). 21. Renata Lok Dessalien, Review of Poverty Concepts and Indicators (New York: UN Development Programme, 1999), 3. 22. Peter Townsend, “A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Povertyy- A rejoinder to Professor Amartya Sen,” Oxford Economic Papers 37, no. 4 (1985). 23. Thirukodikaval Srinivasan, Poverty: Some Measurement Problems (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 1977). 24. Michael Lipton, “Poverty—Are There Holes in the Consensus?” World Development 25, no. 7 (1997). 25. Jan Drewnowski, “Poverty: It’s Meaning and Measurement,” Development and Change 8 (1977). 26. For instance, recently, highly different criteria like the absence of basic abilities—capabilities such as fragility and especially the ability to use health, education, and environment—come to the fore in emphasizing the size of poverty. The concept of fragility refers mostly to the case of being in need of protection. In this sense, weakness, vulnerability, insecurity, and the failure to access basic human needs can be listed as the most concrete forms of fragility. Uncertainty about the future means that the fragility increases for the poor (Asep Suryahadi and Sumarto Sudarno, “Poverty and Vulnerability in Indonesia Before and After the Economic Crisis,” Asian Economic Journal 17, no. 1 [2003]). Likewise, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development endeavored to offer a general definition for poverty and stated that poverty should cover an individual’s capability in every area where the individual suffers deprivation. According to this definition, poverty should definitely address economic capability (earning income, consuming), human capability (health, education, nutrition, accommodation), political capability (human rights, the right to speak on political decisions), sociocultural capability (being a valuable individual in society), and protective capability (the individual’s power to oppose negative economic and societal circumstances that are likely to emerge). In this context, according to its most basic definition, poverty is the absence of adequate and accessible resources that will provide everyone with a good life (Eric Marlier and Anthony

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Atkinson, “Indicators of Poverty and Social Exclusion in a Global Context,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 29, no. 2 [March 2010]). 27. Nurgün Oktik, Türkiye’de Yoksulluk Çalışmaları (İstanbul: Yakın Kitapevi, 2008). 28. James Blaylock and David Smallwood, “An Alternative Approach to Defining and Assessing Poverty Thresholds,” Western Journal of Agricultural Economics 11, no. 1 (1986). 29. Susan Kuivalainen, “Subjective Poverty,” in Encyclopedia of Quality of Life And Well-Being Research, edited by Alex Michalos (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014); Martin Ravallion, “Benchmarking Global Poverty Reduction,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6205 (September 2012). 30. Aysun Danışman Işık, “Subjektif Yoksulluk: Leyden Yaklaşımı ile Bir Değerlendirme,” Amme İdaresi Dergisi 51, no. 1 (March 2018): 73. 31. Ahmet İnsel, Yoksulluk, Dışlanma ve STK (İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2005), 2. 32. Tuna Alemdar, Alper Demirdöğen, and Necat Ören, “Kırsal Yoksulluk Ölçüm Sorunu ve Türkiye.” 10. Ulusal Tarım Ekonomisi Kongresi (5–7 Eylül 2012): 325. 33. Begüm Köse, “Yoksulluğun Küreselleşmesi,” ETHOS: Felsefe ve Toplumsal Bilimlerde Diyaloglar 2, no. 4 (2008): 1. 34. “2020 Multidimensional Poverty Index,” accessed December 10, 2022, https:​ //​www​.undp​.org​/srilanka​/publications​/2020​-global​-multidimensional​-poverty​-index. 35. “People at Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion,” 2020, accessed December 12, 2022, https:​//​ec​.europa​.eu​/eurostat​/cache​/metadata​/en​/sdg​_01​_10​_esmsip2​.htm. 36. Jane Millar, Steven Webb, and Martin Kemp, Combining Work and Welfare (London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1998). 37. Erinç Yeldan, Küreselleşme Kim İçin? (İstanbul: Yordam Kitap, 2008), 79. 38. Seyhan Erdoğdu, “Sosyal Politikada Avrupalı Bir Kavram: Sosyal Dışlanma,” Çalışma Ortamı Dergisi 75 (2004). 39. Scott Burrows, “Precarious Work, Neoliberalism and Young People’s Experiences of Employment in the Illawarra Region,” The Economic and Labour Relations Review 24, no. 3 (2013). 40. Erdoğdu, “Sosyal Politikada,” 13. 41. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Duyuru, translated by Abdullah Yılmaz (İstanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları, 2012), 57. 42. Considering the labor in the informal sector from a perspective of sociocultural parameters, it is seen that these individuals are usually from the most impoverished groups of society. The groups in which informal employment is the most common are unpaid family labor, self-employed individuals, and gig workers, who also have the highest prevalence of poverty (Melek İpek, “Kayıt Dışı İstihdamda Küresel Etkiler ve Sosyal Örüntüler.” Çalışma ve Toplum 1 [2014]: 177). 43. Hasan Ejder Temiz,”Eğreti İstihdam: İşgücü Piyasasında Güvencesizliğin ve İstikrarsızlığın Yeni Yapılanması,” Çalışma ve Toplum Dergisi 2 (2004): 66. 44. Hardt and Negri, Duyuru, 57. 45. Rob Horning, “Precarity and Affective Resistance,” The New Inquiry, February 14, 2012, https:​//​thenewinquiry​.com​/blog​/precarity​-and​-affective​-resistance​/.

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46. Aditya Jain and Julliet Hassard, Precarious Work: Definitions, Workers Affected and OSH Consequences (Bilbao, Spain: EU-OSHA, 2014). 47. İpek, “Kayıt Dışı İstihdamda,” 71. 48. Nergis Mütevellioğlu and Işık Sayım, “Küreselleşme Kriz ve Türkiye’de Neoliberal Dönüşüm,” in Türkiye Emek Piyasasında Neoliberal Dönüşüm, edited by Nergis Mütevellioğlu and Sinan Sönmez (İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2009), 20. 49. Labor Law 4857 that was enacted in 2003 is one of the most significant turning points in terms of the increased presence of precarious labor in Turkey. This law is a development that was prepared in line with discourses of flexibility and human resources and was compatible with the neoliberal discourse that reduced labor to a simple commodity that could be calculated as a production cost and the neoliberal understanding of labor and capital (Gamze Yücesan Özdemir and Ali Murat Özdemir, Sermayenin Adaleti Türkiye’de Emek ve Sosyal Politika [Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları, 2008], 107–08). 50. Yücesan Özdemir and Özdemir, Sermayenin Adaleti, 107. 51. Mütevellioğlu and Sayım, “Küreselleşme Kriz ve Türkiye’de,” 33. 52. Kaan Eroğuz, “Ekonomik Krizin Aynası: Enflasyon,” accessed December 2022, https:​//​turkiyeraporu​.com​/arastirma​/ekonomik​-krizin​-aynasi​-enflasyon​-11314​/. 53. Emek Aslı Cinel, “Türkiye Ekonomisinin Kırılgan Yapısı,” Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 10, no. 23 (March 2018): 60. 54. According to Eğilmez (Mahfi Eğilmez, “Kendime Yazılar- Enflasyon Dosyası,” accessed December 2022, https:​//​www​.mahfiegilmez​.com​/2022​/04​/enflasyon​-dosyas​ .html), the inflation experienced in Turkey is a typical combination of cost inflation, demand-pull inflation, and chronic inflation. The excessively high risks not only compromise the entry of foreign currencies but also leads to dollarization by encouraging the resident individuals to prefer foreign currency. This situation leads to higher exchange rates, resulting in an increase in the costs of imported inputs and the production costs of manufacturers who use these inputs in production. As the increases in costs are reflected on prices, inflation also increases. When individuals see that exchange rates and inflation are rising, they try to reduce the impact of increased prices and start to stockpile the goods and services they would need at excess quantities. Then, this increase in demand raises prices even further. As a consequence of these developments, individuals who think that inflation will increase even further in the future aim to increase their wages and prices in advance to sustain their current lifestyles, and in turn, lead to a further increase in inflation. 55. “Inflation (CPI) 2022,” accessed Jaunary 2023, https:​//​data​.oecd​.org​/price​ / inflation​-cpi​.htm. 56. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Merkez Bankası, “Enflasyon,” 2004, accessed January 1, 2023, https:​//​www​.tcmb​.gov​.tr​/wps​/wcm​/connect​/b62e1fb7​-ebc1​-4922​-99dc​ -b3ba23320b9f​/enflasyon​.pdf​?MOD​=AJPERES​&CACHEID​=ROO. 57. The rate of persistent poverty, which is calculated based on four years of panel data, covers members of households who are poorer compared to 60 percent of the median disposable income of an equivalent household member in at least two years within the last three-year period.

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58. “Gelir ve Yaşam Koşulları Araştırması, 2021, TÜİK,” accessed December 2022, https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Gelir​-ve​-Yasam​-Kosullari​-Arastirmasi​ -2021​-45581. 59. Sharon Vaughan, Poverty, Justice, and Western Political Thought (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 6. 60. Macid Rahnema, Sefaletin Yoksulluğu Kovduğu Bir Dünya, translated by Şule Ünsaldı (İstanbul: Özgür Üniversite Yayınları, 2009), 132. 61. Seebohm Rowntree, Poverty: A Study of Town Life (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971). 62. World Health Organization, “Promoting Mental Health: Concepts, Emerging Evidence, Practice,” 2004, accessed November 2022, https:​//​apps​.who​.int​/iris​/handle​ /10665​/42940. 63. Gill Windle, “What is Resilience? A Review and Concept Analysis,” Reviews in Clinical Gerontology 21 (2011): 153. 64. Gill Windle, David Markland, and Bob Woods, “Examination of A Theoretical Model of Psychological Resilience in Older Age,” Aging & Mental Health 12, no. 3 (2008). 65. Ersin Kavi and Berna Karakale, “Çalışan Psikolojisi Açısından Dayanıklılık,” Hak- iş Uluslararası Emek ve Toplum Dergisi 7, no. 17 (2018). 66. George Bonanno, “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated The Human Capacity To Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?” American Psychologist 59, no. 1 (2004): 20. 67. Froma Walsh, Strengthening Family Resilience (New York: Guilford Publications, 2016). 68. Peter Winwood, Rochelle Colon, and Kath McEwen, “A Practical Measure of Workplace Resilience: Developing the Resilience at Workscale,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 55, no. 10 (2013). 69. Kavi and Karakale, “Çalışan Psikolojisi,” 62; Oddgeir Friborg, Hjemdal Odin, Jan Harald Rosenvinge, and Monica Martinussen, “A New Rating Scale for Adult Resilience: What Are The Central Protective Resources Behind Healthy Adjustment?” International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research 12, no. 2 (2003): 68. 70. Robert Dantzer, Sheldon Cohen, Scott Russo, and Timothy Dinan, “Resilience and Immunity,” Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 74 (2018): 28. 71. Oya Sorias, “Sosyal Destek Kavramı,” Ege Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Dergisi 27, no. 1 (1988). 72. Sorias, “Sosyal Destek,” 355. 73. Hellen Herrman, Donna Stewart, Natalia Diaz Granados, Elena Berger, Beth Jackson, and Tracy Yuen, “What is Resilience?” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 56, no. 5 (2011): 260. 74. Shuquan Chen and George Bonanno, “Psychological Adjustment During the Global Outbreak of COVID-19: A Resilience Perspective,” Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 12, no. 1 (2020): 52. 75. There is no consensus on what the sample size should be for the in-depth interview. Even if the number of interviewees included in the sample to participate in interviews in qualitative research studies performed to build a new theory is

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supposed to be thirty to fifty participants (Janice Morse, “Designing Funded Qualitative Research,” in Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln [Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994]), Sandelowski (Margarate Sandelowski, “Sample Size in Qualitative Research” Research in Nursing and Health, 18 [1995]) asserts that having fifty interviews is more than enough. What matters here is the qualities of participants rather than the number of interviews held with participants and whether the outcomes targeted by the research are obtained. 76. According to the research by the Confederation of Labor Unions of Turkey for November 2022, the total amount of monthly expenses supposed to be made by a family of four members on foodstuff, clothes, housing (rent, electricity, water, heating), transportation, education, health, and similar other compulsory needs (poverty threshold) was 25,364.35 Turkish liras. https:​//​www​.turkis​.org​.tr​/kasim​-2022​-aclik​-ve​ -yoksulluk​-siniri​/. 77. Tuna, Demirdöğen, and Ören, “Kırsal Yoksulluk,” 325. 78. Bill Jordan, A Theory of Poverty and Social Exclusion (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). 79. Bronislaw Geremek, Poverty: A History, translated by Agnreszka Kolakowska (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), 19–20. 80. Hugo van Woerden, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience and Trauma Informed Care: A Public Health Approach to Understanding and Responding to Adversity (London: NHS Highland Public Health, 2018). 81. Rose Stephen and Stephanie Hatzenbuehler, “Embodying Social Class: The Link Between Poverty, Income Inequality and Health,” International Social Work 52, no. 4 (2009). 82. Income poverty is defined as the failure of a person or household to earn an adequate income to meet the basic needs to continue to live or meet minimum living standards, and in the calculation, the income that is necessary to attain a minimum level of living is categorized as the “poverty threshold” (John Iceland and Kurt Bauman, “Income Poverty and Material Hardship: How Strong is the Association?” The Journal of Socioeconomics 36, no. 3 [June 2007]: 380). 83. UN Development Programme, “Human Development Report 1997,” accessed November 2022, https:​//​hdr​.undp​.org​/content​/human​-development​-report​-1997. 84. Ramon Pena Casas and Mia Latta, Working Poor in the European Union (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2004), 1. 85. Rudiger Dornbusch and Stanley Fischer, Makroekonomi, translated by Salih Ak (İstanbul: Akademi Yayınevi, 1998), 526. 86. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Merkez Bankası, “Enflasyon,” 2004. 87. Şenses, “Neoliberal Küreselleşme,” 687. 88. Steger, “Sunuş,” 65.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alcock, Pete. Understanding Poverty. London: Macmillan Press, 1993.

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Alemdar, Tuna, Alper, Demirdöğen, and Ören, Necat. “Kırsal Yoksulluk Ölçüm Sorunu ve Türkiye.” 10. Ulusal Tarım Ekonomisi Kongresi. Konya, 5–7 Eylül 2012. Bauman, Zygmunt. Çalışma, Tüketicilik ve Yeni Yoksullar. Translated by Ümit Öktem. Ankara: Sarmal Yayınevi, 1999. Blaylock, James, and Smallwood, David. “An Alternative Approach to Defining and Assessing Poverty Thresholds.” Western Journal of Agricultural Economics 11, no. 1 (1986): 100–05. Bonanno, George. “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?” American Psychologist 59, no. 1 (2004): 20–28. Britt, Thomas, Winny, Shen, Robert, Sinclair, and Grossman, Matthew. “How Much Do We Really Know about Employee Resilience?” Industrial and Organizational Psychology 9, no. 2 (2016): 378–04. Burrows, Scott. “Precarious Work, Neoliberalism and Young People’s Experiences of Employment in the Illawarra Region.” The Economic and Labour Relations Review 24, no. 3 (2013): 380–96. Chen, Shuquan, and Bonanno, George. “Psychological Adjustment During the Global Outbreak of COVID-19: A Resilience Perspective.” Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 12, no. 1 (2020): 51–54. Cinel, Emek Aslı. “Türkiye Ekonomisinin Kırılgan Yapısı.” Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 10, no. 23 (March 2018): 57–66. Danışman Işık, Aysun. “Subjektif Yoksulluk: Leyden Yaklaşımı ile Bir Değerlendirme.” Amme İdaresi Dergisi 51, no. 1 (March 2018): 71–100. Dantzer, Robert, Cohen, Sheldon, Russo, Scott, and Dinan, Timothy. “Resilience and Immunity.” Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 74 (2018): 28–42. Dornbusch, Rudiger, and Fischer, Stanley. Makroekonomi. Traslated by Salih Ak. İstanbul: Akademi Yayınevi, 1998. Drewnowski, Jan. “Poverty: It’s Meaning and Measurement.” Development and Change 8, (1977): 183–208. Eğilmez, Mahfi. “Kendime Yazılar- Enflasyon Dosyası.” April 4, 2022. Accessed December 2022. https:​//​www​.mahfiegilmez​.com​/2022​/04​/enflasyon​-dosyas​.html Erdoğdu, Seyhan. “Sosyal Politikada Avrupalı Bir Kavram: Sosyal Dışlanma.” Çalışma Ortamı Dergisi 75 (2004): 12–14. Eroğuz, Kaan. “Ekonomik Krizin Aynası: Enflasyon.” Accessed December 2022. https:​//​turkiyeraporu​.com​/arastirma​/ekonomik​-krizin​-aynasi​-enflasyon​-11314​/ EUROSTAT. “People at Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion.” 2020. Accessed December 12, 2022. https:​//​ec​.europa​.eu​/eurostat​/cache​/metadata​/en​/sdg​_01​_10​ _esmsip2​.htm Friborg, Oddgeir, Hjemdal, Odin, Jan Harald, Rosenvinge, and Martinussen, Monica. “A New Rating Scale for Adult Resilience: What are the Central Protective Resources Behind Healthy Adjustment?” International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research 12, no. 2 (2003): 65–76. Geremek, Bronislaw. Poverty: A History. Translated by Agnreszka Kolakowska. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997.

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Gürses, Didem. “Türkiye’de Yoksulluk ve Yoksullukla Mücadele Politikaları.” Balıkesir Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 10, no. 17 (2007): 59–74. Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio. Duyuru. Translated by Abdullah Yılmaz. İstanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları, 2012. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Herrman, Hellen, Stewart, Donna, Diaz-Granados, Natalia, Berger, Elena, Jackson, Beth, and Yuen, Tracy. “What Is Resilience?” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 56, no. 5 (2011): 258–65. Horning, Rob. “Precarity and Affective Resistance.” The New Inquiry, February 14, 2012. https:​//​thenewinquiry​.com​/blog​/precarity​-and​-affective​-resistance​/ Iceland, John, and Bauman, Kurt. “Income Poverty and Material Hardship: How Strong is the Association?” The Journal of Socio-Economics 36, no. 3 (June 2007): 376–96. İnsel, Ahmet. Yoksulluk, Dışlanma ve STK. Sivil Toplum ve Demokrasi Konferans Yazıları, İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, no. 6 (2005). İpek, Melek. “Kayıt Dışı İstihdamda Küresel Etkiler ve Sosyal Örüntüler.” Çalışma ve Toplum 1 (2014): 163–85. Jain, Aditya, and Hassard, Julliet. Precarious Work: Definitions, Workers Affected and OSH Consequences. Bilbao, Spain: European Agency for Safety & Health at Work, 2014. https:​//​irep​.ntu​.ac​.uk​/id​/eprint​/31253​/ Jordan, Bill. A Theory of Poverty and Social Exclusion. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. Kalaycıoğlu, Sibel, and Rittersberger Tılıç, Helga. “Yapısal Uyum Programlarıyla Ortaya Çıkan Yoksulluk Başetme Stratejileri.” In Kentleşme, Göç ve Yoksulluk, edited by Ahmet Alpay Dikmen, 197–246. Ankara: İmaj Yayımcılık, 2002. Kavi, Ersin, and Karakale, Berna. “Çalışan Psikolojisi Açısından Dayanıklılık.” Hakiş Uluslararası Emek ve Toplum Dergisi 7, no. 17 (2018): 55–76. Kazgan, Gülten. Türkiye Ekonomisinde Krizler (1929–2001): Ekonomi Politik Açısından Bir İrdeleme. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2008. Köse, Begüm. “Yoksulluğun Küreselleşmesi.” ETHOS: Felsefe ve Toplumsal Bilimlerde Diyaloglar 2, no. 4 (2008): 1–11. Kuivalainen, Susan. “Subjective Poverty.” In Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, edited by Alex Michalos, 6432–34. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. Kumar, Krishan. Sanayi Sonrası Toplumdan Post-Modern Topluma. Translated by Mehmet Küçük. Ankara: Dost Kitabevi, 1999. Lipton, Michael. “Poverty—Are There Holes in the Consensus?” World Development 25, no. 7 (1997): 1003–07. Lok Dessalien, Renata. Review of Poverty Concepts and Indicators. New York: UN Development Programme, 1999. Luthans, Fred, Avolio, Bruce, Avey, James, and Norman, Steven. “Positive Psychological Capital: Measurement and Relationship with Performance and Satisfaction.” Personnel Psychology 60, no. 3 (2007): 541–72.

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Margulies, Roni. “Sunuş.” In Küreselleşmeyi Anlama Kılavuzu, edited by Wayne Ellwood, 7–11. Translated by Betül Dilan Genç. İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2003. Marlier, Eric, and Atkinson, Anthony. “Indicators of Poverty and Social Exclusion in a Global Context.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 29, no. 2 (March 2010): 285–304. Millar, Jane, Webb, Steven, and Kemp, Martin. Combining Work and Welfare. London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1998. Morse, Janice. “Designing Funded Qualitative Research.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, 220–35. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994. Mütevellioğlu, Nergis, and Sayım, Işık. “Küreselleşme Kriz ve Türkiye’de Neoliberal Dönüşüm.” In Türkiye Emek Piyasasında Neoliberal Dönüşüm, edited by Nergis Mütevellioğlu and Sinan Sönmez, 159–204. İstanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2009. Oktik, Nurgün. Türkiye’de Yoksulluk Çalışmaları. İstanbul: Yakın Kitapevi, 2008. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “DAC Guidelines on Poverty Reduction.” Paris: OECD Publications Service, 2001. Accessed November 3, 2022. https:​//​www​.oecd​-ilibrary​.org​/docserver​/9789264194779​-en​ .pdf​?expires​=1677862487​&id​=id​&accname​=guest​&checksum​=20A53​FD​9849​0​2​ 6​DC​862B606ED81DE892 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “Inflation (CPI).” 2022. Accessed January 2023. https:​//​data​.oecd​.org​/price​/inflation​-cpi​.htm Pena Casas, Ramon, and Latta, Mia. Working Poor in the European Union. Luxembourg: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2004. Rahnema, Macid. Sefaletin Yoksulluğu Kovduğu Bir Dünya. Translated by Şule Ünsaldı. İstanbul: Özgür Üniversite Yayınları, 2009. Ravallion, Martin. “Benchmarking Global Poverty Reduction.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6205 (September 2012). Rowntree, Seebohm. Poverty: A Study of Town Life. New York: Howard Fertig, 1971. Sandelowski, Margarate. “Sample Size in Qualitative Research.” Research in Nursing and Health 18 (1995): 179–83. Sorias, Oya. “Sosyal Destek Kavramı.” Ege Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Dergisi 27, no. 1 (1988): 353–57. Srinivasan, Thirukodikaval. Poverty: Some Measurement Problems. Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 1977. Standing, Guy. Prekarya: Yeni Tehlikeli Sınıf. Translated by Ergin Bulut. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2014. Stephen, Rose, and Hatzenbuehler, Stephanie. “Embodying Social Class: The Link Between Poverty, Income Inequality and Health.” International Social Work 52, no. 4 (2009): 459–71. Steger, Manfred. Küreselleşme. Translated by Abdullah Ersoy. Ankara: Dost Yayınları, 2004. Sue, Derald Wing, and Sue, David. Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2019.

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Suryahadi, Asep, and Sudarno, Sumarto. “Poverty and Vulnerability in Indonesia Before and After the Economic Crisis.” Asian Economic Journal 17, no. 1 (2003): 45–64. Şenses, Fikret. “Neoliberal Küreselleşme Çağında Yoksulluk Araştırmalarındaki Kayıp Bağlantılar: Türkiye Deneyiminden Çıkarılacak Dersler.” In Neoliberal Küreselleşme ve Kalkınma, edited by Fikret Şenses, 679–704. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2009. TÜİK. “Analitik Çerçeve, Kapsam, Tanımlar ve Sınıflamalar.” 2007. Accessed November 2022. https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Kategori​/GetKategori​?p​=Gelir​,​-Yasam​,​ -Tuketim​-ve​-Yoksulluk​-107 TÜİK. “Gelir ve Yaşam Koşulları Araştırması, 2021.” Accessed December 2022. https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Gelir​-ve​-Yasam​-Kosullari​-Arastirmasi​ -2021​-45581 Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Merkez Bankası. “Enflasyon.” 2004. Accessed January 1, 2023. https:​//​www​.tcmb​.gov​.tr​/wps​/wcm​/connect​/b62e1fb7​-ebc1​-4922​-99dc​ -b3ba23320b9f​/enflasyon​.pdf​?MOD​=AJPERES​&CACHEID​=ROO Temiz, Hasan Ejder. “Eğreti İstihdam: İşgücü Piyasasında Güvencesizliğin ve İstikrarsızlığın Yeni Yapılanması.” Çalışma ve Toplum Dergisi 2 (2004): 55–80. Townsend, Peter. “A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Poverty—A Rejoinder to Professor Amartya Sen.” Oxford Economic Papers 37, no. 4 (1985): 659–68. Tugade, Michele, and Fredrickson, Barbara. “Resilient Individuals Use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back from Negative Emotional Experiences.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86, no. 2 (2004): 320–33. Tusaie, Kathleen, and Dyer, Janyce. “Resilience: A Historical Review of Construct.” Holistic Nursing Practice 18, no. 1 (2004): 3–10. UN Development Programme. “Human Development Report 1997.” Accessed November 2022. https:​//​hdr​.undp​.org​/content​/human​-development​-report​-1997 UN Development Programme. “2020 Multidimensional Poverty Index.” Accessed December 10, 2022. https:​//​www​.undp​.org​/srilanka​/publications​/2020​-global​ -multidimensional​-poverty​-index Vaughan, Sharon. Poverty, Justice, and Western Political Thought. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. Yeldan, Erinç. Küreselleşme Kim İçin? İstanbul: Yordam Kitap, 2008. Yıldız, Naciye. “Neoliberal Ekonomik Küreselleşme ve Çocuk Yoksulluğu.” Maltepe Üniversitesi Fen Edebivat Fakültesi Dergisi 2 (2007): 79–98. Yücesan Özdemir, Gamze, and Murat Özdemir, Ali. Sermayenin Adaleti Türkiye’de Emek ve Sosyal Politika. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları, 2008. Walsh, Froma. Strengthening Family Resilience. New York: Guilford Publications, 2016. Windle, Gill, Markland, David, and Woods, Bob. “Examination of A Theoretical Model of Psychological Resilience in Older Age.” Aging & Mental Health 12, no. 3 (2008): 285–92. Windle, Gill. “What is Resilience? A Review and Concept Analysis.” Reviews in Clinical Gerontology 21 (2011): 152–69.

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Winwood, Peter, Colon, Rochelle, and McEwen, Kath. “A Practical Measure of Workplace Resilience: Developing the Resilience at Workscale.” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 55, no. 10 (2013): 1205–12. Woerden, Hugo van. Adverse Childhood Experiences, Resilience and Trauma Informed Care: A Public Health Approach to Understanding and Responding to Adversity. Annual Report of the Director of Public Health. London: NHS Highland Public Health, 2018. World Health Organization. “Promoting Mental Health: Concepts, Emerging Evidence, Practice (Summary Report).” Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2004. Accessed November 2022. https:​//​apps​.who​.int​/iris​/handle​ /10665​/42940

‌‌‌C hapter Two

New Modes of Vulnerabilities and Sensibilities of the Middle Class in Turkey‌‌ Dramatization as Politics in the Case of Sour Dictionary Çağlar Enneli and Pınar Enneli

The most visible and striking consequence of neoliberal economy politics is growing inequality coupled with increasing poverty. Most studies, however, tend to focus on those who are currently poor while almost disregarding the issue of becoming poor. To capture the true nature and dynamics of economic changes in any given society from a broad perspective, it is as crucial to focus on the vulnerabilities, sensibilities, and resilience of various wage-earners, especially those in the middle segments of income distribution, to socioeconomic turmoil as it is to think about the vulnerabilities, sensibilities, and resilience of the poor. Therefore, this chapter will focus on the middle-class segment of society in Turkey and their responses to the current economic crisis by analyzing discussions on the popular online forum Sour Dictionary (Ekşi Sözlük). In Turkey, the fiscal policies adopted after the 2002 economic crisis have been used by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to raise the living standards of large segments of the working population through the distribution of cheap credit. This cheap credit has kept the poor classes dependent on minimal social security expenditures and created an extremely rich but small group of capitalists. Therefore, the working class has been inspired to move up the social ladder by owning a house, a car, or other desirable commodities. The global economic crisis, however, has subverted this system of 49

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policies, and the poor segment of society has been facing deteriorating conditions since 2018. Conditions became significantly worse after the last quarter of 2021, as a large segment of the population has been constantly losing its purchasing power due to the dramatically increasing inflation. At the same time, discussions have generally centered on the difficulties and struggles of people living in poverty rather than those of the middle classes and focused on the price increases of staple products such as bread, electricity, and natural gas. While discussing poverty in terms of staple product prices may appear normal as they are directly linked to low-income expenditures and survival, this chapter concentrates on the deteriorating conditions of the middle class. Therefore, we analyze a specific title “things that were unexceptional 5 years ago but are currently luxurious” in Sour Dictionary (Ekşi Sözlük). Sour Dictionary is a recent internet platform where several issues are defined and redefined humorously by different anonymous users. Our aim is to evaluate middle-class vulnerabilities and sensibilities through consumer products and narratives selected and told by Sour Dictionary writers in order to highlight the current economic turmoil in Turkey. In this chapter, we conceptualize middle-class efforts of writing on the Sour Dictionary as a form of infra-politics. Infra-politics can be defined as the enmeshment of resilience1 and resistance or how people perceive individual resilience as resistance to the system. We use this concept of resilience in this chapter. MIDDLE-CLASS RESPONSE TO ECONOMIC CRISIS: NEW VULNERABILITIES AND SENSIBILITIES In order to analyze the severity of poverty, most research has focused on the widening gap in income distribution between the top and bottom segments of the population.2 Economic inequality in the world has undoubtedly been on the rise in the last three decades.3 In Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, for instance, the income of the richest 10 percent is ten times higher than that of the poorest 10 percent.4 In 2015, 193 members of the United Nations declared a strong commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The first goal of the Sustainable Development Goals is to end poverty, especially extreme poverty, by increasing access to basic economic resources and social protection services and introducing pro-poor and inclusive policy frameworks. This goal requires targeting the most vulnerable to poverty.5 Poverty and inequality, however, are not problems only for the bottom segments of society. Research examining the relationship between income and life satisfaction in different countries, for instance, has revealed that



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income inequalities influence people’s preferences across different segments of society and that people’s life satisfaction, especially in countries with high economic inequality, is strongly determined by their income.6 Economic shocks lead to distributional consequences across societal groups and cause various responses to the changing conditions of these groups. Furthermore, objective income inequalities impact the self-perception of the poor, of the middle class, and of the rich in relation to one another.7 The middle class, whose income distribution is between 20 percent and 80 percent of total gross national product, can provide a distinctive understanding of poverty and inequality.8 In a similar vein, MacLeavy and Manley9 suggested that analyzing the middle class, which constitutes the majority of the population, is essential because substantial variations across a wide range of measures, attitudes, and approaches to understanding the complex nature of inequality exist in that population. Concerning wealth accumulation and inequality, it is evident that there is a global elite of the top 1 percent; however, it is also true that there is dynamic and important wealth inequality among the remaining 99 percent from the standpoint of housing and mortgage markets.10 As with those at the bottom of society and the poor, the middle classes today are increasingly being “squeezed” and threatened with extinction.11 The clearest implication of a squeezed middle class is that the current social protection systems, including many welfare benefits such as retirement and health care, are collapsing and the number of mid-level jobs to finance the middle class is diminishing while the number of middle-class people with memberships in traditional social protection schemes is reducing.12 For example, in the United States, Plumer13 showed that mid-wage occupations, paying between $13.83 and $21.13 per hour, made up approximately 60 percent of job losses during the 2008 recession. However, these mid-wage occupations constituted just 27 percent of the jobs gained during the recovery. In contrast, low-wage occupations paying less than $13.83 per hour have greatly dominated the recovery, with 58 percent of the job gains since 2010. Certainly, the middle-class share of growth and income keeps declining, and it continues to be squeezed.14 Chauvel et al.15 analyzed the socioeconomic squeeze of the middle classes in the twenty-first century across seven dimensions. First, the middle classes have lost stable career paths and wage certainty and have difficulties making plans. Second, their wages have not provided them with enduring middle-class living standards in terms of a capacity to avoid over-indebtedness, purchasing property, and having guaranteed hours, pensions, wages, and permanent contracts. Third, targeted and means-tested welfare regimes have progressively excluded them from social protection because they are too rich to be protected and too poor to be dominant in market competition. Fourth,

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even highly educated members of the middle class have difficulties finding suitable employment due to a mismatch between education and socioeconomic position, thus eroding belief in the value of mass education and making middle-class individuals anxious about the risks of sudden social downward mobility. Fifth, there is declining trust among the middle class in civil society and modern state institutions because economic degradation, downward mobility, and the lack of a reliable and stable regulating framework have generated fear, frustration, and social disorganization. Sixth, the institutions of social democracy have initiated a process of political inequality in which the winner takes everything and thereby excludes the poor and the middle classes. Finally, problems previously limited to socially excluded groups or the working class have begun to spill over to the lower middle class, which has experienced downward mobility. Anxiety and feelings of being squeezed are especially evident among the young generation of the middle class. In all countries, the future outlook of young people has become negative since the 2008 global economic crisis as a result of their diminishing prospects of achieving their parents’ lifestyles.16 The combination of income and labor market conditions as well as housing trends means that all young people are facing unprecedented living standard challenges.17 Members of the young generation seem to be much more aware of the difficulties that await them than other generations of the middle classes. An article focusing on the perspectives expressed by 106 young adults from different social class backgrounds in the United States, dealing with the economic downturn, pointed out that compared to other classes, upper-middle-class young people had a strong awareness and understanding of the economic recession. They thought that their opportunities to reproduce the privileged social status of their parents had shrunk.18 Similarly, Silva and Snellman19 suggested that while working-class youth dream of upward mobility and see college education as a way out of their grim reality, middle-class youth worry about downward mobility and see college as a way to avoid a decline in their social status. Today, as Cassidy et al.20 rightly pointed out, as a result of the fact that a growing proportion of the population is in debt and excluded from the opportunities of being financially stable, let alone experiencing upward mobility, young people have been brought into a sharp reality in which economic success is not dependent on individual merits but rather on the very ability of the young people’s families to transmit wealth and privilege to them. Including the middle classes in discussions about poverty is particularly important for low- and middle-income countries.21 The middle class in low- and especially in middle-income countries may be greatly influenced by the effect of globalization.22 Current trends suggest that globally, the gap between the world’s richest and poorest and also between the middle class of



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the developed world and the new middle class of the developing world will rise.23 In fact, the developing world’s middle classes may not be considered poor by the standards of their own countries but are considered poor by the standards of rich countries.24 Under the pressure of an economic crisis, the structural constraints on people’s lives go hand in hand with media discourses and educational messages and developmental narratives promoting ambitious and individualized pathways through self-mastery, self-invention, and personal growth. The structural constraints encourage people to increasingly make sense of their individual lives in terms of discourses on personal freedom, autonomy, and choice—no matter how constrained people might be.25 In this coercive context, consumption is an important element of how people understand and assert their class position, life projects, political desires, aspirations, regrets, and imaginations of what is desirable and possible.26 “Ideal” middle-class consumers’ tendencies and preferences may even serve as aspirational yardsticks in societies.27 In the age of consumption, people have learned and internalized the desire to possess valuable assets such as houses and cars even though the political–economic environment might restrict opportunities to possess these assets.28 Interestingly, consumption trends have contributed to reproducing and exacerbating inequality. For instance, in the United Kingdom, since the 2008 crisis, status anxiety has led resource-constrained households to consume attention-grabbing status products such as cars using bank credits, which in turn has undermined these households’ capacity to invest in long-term welfare and reproduction strategies.29 A debt-driven consumption strategy might make inequality a polarizing problem even in Scandinavian countries, which are well-known for their protective welfare systems. Hansen and Toft30 revealed that young Norwegian adults are differentiated based on the credit they use, with the most vulnerable groups likely to use high-interest consumer credit as opposed to advantaged groups which incur debt to accumulate wealth. It is evident that decades of neoliberal economic transformations and inequality have changed the existing circumstances and life prospects of not only the poor but also of the middle class. Economic crises, particularly, have made wage-earners anxious about their future and that of succeeding generations. In an attempt to recover lost economic status and prevent the possibility of downward mobility, the middle class has borrowed money and spent it on either luxurious consumption or wealthy assets. This behavior was apparent in developed nations during the 2008 economic crisis. Since then, most countries in the eurozone continue struggling with unemployment, low wage increases, and inequality. Moreover, the effects of the 2008 global crisis have been felt in developing and underdeveloped countries since 2018. Turkey

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has entered into a delayed economic crisis and has experienced devastating increases in foreign exchange rates and initial stagnation followed by shrinkage of the economy.31 SQUEEZED MIDDLE CLASSES IN TURKEY AFTER THE 2018 ECONOMIC TURMOIL In 2002, the AKP government came to power and, since then, by implementing right-wing populist policies, it has created not only a significant expansion of wealth in the top layers of society but also led to a rise in the number of the conservative middle class32 and urban and rural poor who are largely dependent on a patrimonial welfare regime.33 The members of the new middle class come from conservative working-class backgrounds and have optimistic future aspirations.34 The popularity and electoral success of Erdoğan and the AKP have remained intact for years, thanks to strong business support, assertive nationalism, and continuous economic growth that has led to significant benefits for large segments of society.35 However, AKP’s strategy has come under severe pressure, especially after the economic recession in 2018. The absence of cheap international credit, declining foreign investment and growth, rising inflation rates and debts, and increasing inequality were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.36 The economic turmoil restricted the AKP government’s ability to distribute resources and keep its popular base composed of the new middle class and aid-dependent poor, which led the party to suffer an electoral setback in the 2019 local elections.37 In fact, the AKP government has tried to manage political and class tensions in the face of a continuous financial crisis and weakness since the 2010s but wrong economic decisions, such as pressuring the central bank in a way that caused international investors to lose confidence, have made the current economic crisis particularly acute.38 In 2021, the average 2.9 percent currency depreciation against the US dollar led to wealth losses in many countries such as Japan (–9.3 percent) and the eurozone (–7.7 percent), but the loss of 43 percent in Turkey put the country in a league of its own.39 Moreover, gross national product per person has been falling dramatically from $12,489 in 2013 to $9,654 in 2021, decreasing Turkey’s position in the GNP rank from sixty-five to seventy-seven out of 191 countries.40 Besides, the inflation in consumer prices has been very high in the last few years. The annual consumer inflation rate calculated by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), assigning one hundred base points to 2003, reached 293 in 2016, 327 in 2017, 504 in 2020, and finally 1,128 in 2022.41 Moreover, the recent economic turmoil has caused a severe deterioration in living conditions for poor people. Çetin42 suggested that poverty is



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a more serious problem in Turkey than it is in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. According to the material deprivation index used by TUIK in 2021 to define financial distress conditions, 27.2 percent of households were in severe material deprivation conditions—that is, they did not meet at least four out of nine conditions set by the institution. These conditions are ownership of a washing machine, color television, phone, or automobile; ability to cover out-of-pocket requirements; ability to take a week’s vacation; ability to pay rent, mortgage, or other credit; ability to eat meat, chicken, or fish at least every other day; and ability to meet the heating needs of a house.43 In fact, Turkey had the third-highest rate of severe material deprivation in Europe in 2020.44 The economic crisis has imposed an extra burden on the poor segment of society due to income and wealth inequality and has negatively impacted the condition of the middle-income class. The average adult income in Turkey was 85,010 Turkish liras (TL) in 2021. The bottom 50 percent of the population earned 20,260 TL on average, while the top 10 percent earned twenty-three times more (463,020 TL). The average income of the middle 40 percent was 71,600 TL, which was 6.5 times less than that of the top 10 percent and only 3.5 times more than that of the bottom 50 percent. The average earnings of the top 1 percent were 1,601,770 TL (seventy-nine times more than that of the bottom 50 percent and twenty-two times more than that of the middle 40 percent).45 Inequality in terms of wealth was particularly striking: The bottom 50 percent, middle 40 percent, and top 10 percent held 4 percent, 29 percent, and 67 percent of total national wealth, respectively.46 In this respect, it is therefore important to consider the consequences of the 2018 economic crisis not only in relation to the poor but also in relation to the vulnerabilities and sensibilities of various wage earners—especially the middle classes. AKP’s neoliberal populist strategy was largely subsidized before the crisis by consumer credit, cheap loans, credit cards, clientelist aids, and the import of cheap primary consumption goods.47 Although existing consumer credits are mainly used by middle- and upper-income households because they have stable incomes, low-income households also use consumer credits to pay for their everyday expenses.48 Furthermore, Life Satisfaction research, which is regularly conducted by TUIK, indicates that the percentage of people who stated that they were unhappy steadily increased from 12.1 percent in 2018 and 13.1 percent in 2019 (the highest after 200849) to 14.5 percent in 2020 and to 16.6 percent in 2021.50 Of particular note, the highest rate of unhappy people was among the youth aged eighteen to twenty-four (20.4 percent).51 This trend may in some way explain the current attitude of young people, especially skilled individuals, toward migrating abroad, which has been one of the most important issues in recent years in Turkey. According to research submitted to parliament,

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there has been an increase in migration abroad among the young and educated population in recent years, causing Turkey to fall to twenty-fourth place out of thirty-two countries in terms of the highest brain drain. Citizens aged twenty-five to twenty-nine were among those who migrated abroad the most in 2019.52 In an analysis of the motivations behind the emigration of highly skilled young people from Turkey, Nefes53 found that the main reason was seeking a better life, which meant high living standards and a carefree life in decent conditions. Economic instability in Turkey has affected various aspects of young people’s lives, from basic needs to luxurious consumption. The economic situation in recent years has had a negative and stressful impact on a wide range of Turkish wage earners, not only from the bottom 20 percent but also from the middle-income class. The vulnerability of the middle classes in the context of deteriorating material and financial conditions has developed new sensibilities and resilience in Turkey. To analyze these sensibilities as a form of resilience, the following section will focus on posts on Sour Dictionary, an interactive and informal social media platform. This platform was chosen for a number of reasons. First, since its creation in 1999, it has garnered approximately six hundred thousand active users and 119,000 writers, with an average of thirty-five million visits per month.54 This means it has a large number of active participants. Second, as İşleyen55 pointed out, taking part in discussions in the dictionary requires a certain level of economic and cultural capital. This is a reality that was valid even twenty years ago in Turkey, and it goes hand in hand with the widespread internet use among the educated upper and middle classes.56 According to a recent study conducted on 203 Sour Dictionary users, the majority of its writers are aged between eighteen and thirty-one, have at least a university degree, have white-collar jobs such as engineering or a teaching post, and live in metropolitan centers such as İstanbul, Ankara, or İzmir.57 We believe that all these factors make Sour Dictionary an ideal platform for our research purposes. Finally, the fact that writers adopt usernames that allow them to remain anonymous makes Sour Dictionary a safe haven for freedom of expression58 and gives us a sound and solid base with possibly minimum self-censorship to analyze the vulnerabilities, sensibilities, and resilience of the middle class. NOTES ON METHODOLOGY This study on recent economic decline particularly aimed to understand the expressions through which Sour Dictionary writers make sense of growing poverty in Turkey. The term “expression” here needs to have some clarification. We do not intend to explain “real” deprivation or believe in the possibility of doing so by only focusing on ideas written on social media without



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making any observation of human practices. Instead, we aim to identify the meaningful categories framed by Sour Dictionary writers, which may allow us to see how poverty in Turkey is assessed by the middle classes. In the research process, we first scanned some seemingly related titles from Sour Dictionary to choose the most suitable one for our study. There were some noticeable titles such as, “all joking aside, dramatic decrease in purchasing power in Turkey,” “trying to eradicate middle class,” “cost of living in 2022,” and “little details that reveal the decreasing purchasing power.” However, we decided not to use any of the titles: The first two had a small number of entries and the second and third contained entries made only in 2022, so they did not fit into our plan of covering as many entries and carrying as much data as possible from previous years. The last title seemed highly appropriate for analysis. It had started in 2018 and reached thirty-three hundred entries so far. We felt, however, that the emphasis on “little details” in the title would narrow the range of products we intend to analyze, limiting us only to basic necessities. Therefore, we did not choose it. We finally decided to use a title that would serve well in analyzing changing purchasing power. The title is “things that were unexceptional 5 years ago but are currently luxurious.” The title promised to give insights into the transition in products and modes of consumption from the ordinary to the luxurious, or, in other words, from what was once affordable to what is now hardly affordable or unaffordable. The title was initiated in October 2020 and since then has reached 2,228 entries, the last of which was written in December 2022. We analyzed entries in two ways. First, we looked at them in terms of whether they mentioned any products to signify the change in the economic situation. The products, either stated by their brand name or type, might reveal the means through which class positions were discussed, such as modes and patterns of consumption. Therefore, we first counted products, then classified them into categories, and finally divided them based on various social class sensitivities. Consequently, we attributed “Food” (for domestic consumption), “House expenses,”59 and “Public services”60 to class vulnerabilities; “Technology-electronic,” “Holiday” (both domestic and foreign), “Alcoholic beverages” (purchased for domestic consumption), “Meal and drink outside,” “Going out to drink alcohol,”61 “Cosmetics,” “Fuel oil,” “Clothes and shoes,” “Cigarette,” and “Stationary, toy, and art” to sensibilities for maintaining class position; and, finally, “Vehicles” (automobiles and motorcycles), “Financial instruments” (foreign currencies and gold), and “House” to aspirational class sensibilities. We also had a category called “Everything” because many users, without referring to a specific product but still staying at the product level, mentioned that everything had become a luxury.

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Second, instead of focusing on consumer products, we dwelt on writers’ formulations to stress changes in life in regard to decreasing purchasing power in Turkey. This part of the analysis manifested itself through dramatic narrations. As the data shows, the entries of the title we analyzed are more than just a simple list of products: they contain an emotional package that is complementary to an understanding of how, in Turkey, poverty is perceived in general, including class positions, opportunities of class movements, and mobilizations in particular during the last two-year period of turmoil in the Turkish economy. CLASS VULNERABILITIES AND SENSIBILITIES REFLECTED THROUGH PRODUCTS The product categories featured by Sour Dictionary writers in the title, “things that were unexceptional 5 years ago but are currently luxurious” are shown in figure 2.1. We used both the number of products and the number of entries in which they are stressed.62

Figure 2.1.  Distribution of Products Based on Sensibilities and Vulnerabilities Source: Prepared by the authors in Excel program



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Food products, as shown, seem to be the dominant indicator of the deteriorating economic situation. The fact that food ranks first in the list of products that have become luxuries may be surprising at first glance, but it may indicate a sensitivity to losing class position. As noted by Bauman, food is an extremely functional tool that reduces poverty to a problem of hunger and conceals the reality of poverty by reducing the global task to feeding the hungry.63 The high proportion of domestic nutritional products in the list of growing luxuries may reflect a political statement that intentionally aims to level economic change within the framework of accessing food. As one entry clearly shows, a different approach is politically inappropriate to a large extent: You are really uneducable. Yes, it was ordinary for every ordinary person to travel to Europe in 2017. Would you believe it, our downstairs neighbour, retired aunt Makbule, could not do without going to Prag once a week. Even Kılıçdaroğlu64understood where to make opposition from, but these idiots did not. Idiot oppositionist, you will say oil, you will say bread, you will say phone bill, you will say riding the municipal bus. (doksanlardakalmisadam-16.02.2022-06.27)

According to this post, the most appropriate way to talk about economic decline is to emphasize basic necessities, including food. Any other statements primarily serve to conceal the grave economic reality. However, considering the fact that Sour Dictionary writers generally have an educated background, it would be fair to say that a politically expressive definition of luxury using basic life expenditures reproduces a discourse that equates poverty with the problem of hunger and basic living. This reproduction is based on the political expression that “even food and other basic necessities” are now hardly accessible. Apart from political expression, this statement may imply a real fear of losing or downgrading in class position. There are many entries indicating that this is indeed the case: No need to specify a product. Everything’s getting more expensive now. Worst of all, there’s no room for hope. We’re getting worse by (sic) every passing day. (honey ryder-17.08.2021-16.45) Living! People wrote about holidays abroad, cars, houses. I can’t even travel around the neighbourhood I live in, let alone foreign or even domestic holidays. I can’t even afford to pay for the bus anymore, let alone the taxi. House and car are just a dream, I cannot even dream of them. I’m tired of trying to manage baby nappies. When I find cheap nappies, I’m as happy as if I found gold. Damn this system! (gelirsen ekime gelmezsen sikime-17.02.2022-13.35)

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All basic needs are now luxurious!!! The public is now in survivor mode, almost eating lizards. (pretty but physco-01.12.2022–10.13)

The rest of the categories perhaps tell another part of the story concerning class sensibilities. The product categories that refer to the preservation of class position are apparently the most dominant in numbers, with 1,597 products within 1,360 entries. The products and experiences placed under these categories might be regarded as expressions of possibilities that are already within reach but whose preservation has now become a luxury. These products and experiences also represent possibilities that are aspired to but have now become almost a dream. Middle-class people particularly have these sensibilities as evidenced by the entries that follow: B segment car, seasonal shoes, an average mobile phone, travelling to another city etc. The list will go on and on. In short, everything the middle income once afforded is now luxurious. Middle layer has now come to an end and only rich and poor left. (mekanikpalyaco-01.12.2022–09.58) Everything from needle to thread. So much so that those who can buy extra virgin olive oil in glass bottles are now treated as bourgeois. (fair lady-24.12.2022-16.16) Time not spent for earning money has become a luxury. It is necessary to earn money constantly now, otherwise I can’t keep up with the expenses. I’m in debt. I still can’t keep up. Goddamn it. (hellohell-17.08.2021-16.58)

We interpreted owning a vehicle and a house and investing money as categories reflecting hopes for class mobility. At first glance, these categories can be seen as having the highest potential to be called luxuries in order to express rising costs and falling purchasing power. However, Sour Dictionary writers do not seem to have thought of it exactly this way, probably either because they do not consider them as critical as basic needs such as food in marking economic decline, or because the hope for class mobility is overshadowed by a fear of class decline or a fear of maintaining class position. Entries in this category, interestingly, speak much more explicitly about the middle class than other classes: Most of those who used to be able to buy a brand-new premium vehicle can hardly buy a 1.3 tce clio now. Of course, the group I mean is the white collar of the past, since the rich of the past are even richer now:). (colakbasri-17.12.2022–21.55) For a white-collar and high earning couple, a good c-segment car and a nice house in a decent neighbourhood can be given as an example. Now, such a



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couple’s lifetime is not long enough to have these two. (sucukta ender gitarda fender-08.10.2020–21.29)

Douglas and Isherwood argued that products are used to stabilize cultural categories and make them visible. The products are also tools for communication and carry social meaning.65 It is desirable to continue with the second part of the analysis to see the meanings the products convey and the communication they make. DRAMATIC EXPRESSIONS AS A MEANS OF MARKING CLASS SENSIBILITIES AND VULNERABILITIES Sour Dictionary writers also expressed their thoughts on a title without referring to any type of product. We referred to this expression as a narration on the basis of economic perception. Some of the narrations fit well into a product-based classification in the sense that they position the whole matter into the lowest level of necessities. The first narrational category in this sense stresses “life” or “living” as a means of luxury. Describing the whole life without providing any detail (e.g., an entry with a single word, “living”) seems to create a highly dramatic effect in pointing out economic deterioration. This type of statement occurred many times (fifty-seven entries in total). This expression of life was often complemented by another expression, namely “living humanly” (ten entries in total) that was used as a way of increasing the dramatic effect. The fact that this category of expression essentially makes sense of economic deterioration by relating to people’s very existence may be regarded as fear of not being able to maintain one’s class position. This fear is directly embodied in activities such as “going to cinema, theatre, concert, and festival” (forty-five entries in total), “dating” (consisting of explicitly sexual references [sixteen entries] and romantic relationships [eleven entries]), “going outside” (without any reference to any other accompanying consumption activity) (ten entries), “hosting people” (five entries), “meeting with friends” (seven entries), “getting socialized with friends” (thirteen entries), “having a hobby” (fifteen entries), and “doing sports” (six entries). The following posts may provide clarification about the fear of preserving class position: Even by keeping expenditures at minimum, travelling around cities has become like going abroad. For all these years, I have been arguing that the basic needs of people are not only to be nourished but also to go to the cinema, to travel, to participate in cultural events. How can we be deprived of such a human right.

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I am deprived of spending the best age of my life by seeing new places. These are not luxury expenditures. (darlamabeniya-15.02.2022–21.58) There is a saying that it is not difficult to be poor, but it is difficult to get used to the luxury of the rich and then live poor. That’s exactly what I’m living now. (jargonx-16.02.2022-00.18)

The other type of narration, although not easy to distinguish from the former, seems to push dramatization slightly into the background and directly links the inexistence of and/or inadequacy of income to economic deterioration. “Living off” is an expression in this category that is either used as a direct statement (nine entries) or as a statement about the inadequacy of job income (ten entries) or of finding (nine entries) or losing (one entry) a job. However, there are expressions with a strong dramatic tone that fit well into this category. These expressions are “surviving” (seven entries) and “breathing” (fourteen entries). It is possible to suggest that this is the mode of expression that corresponds to the fear of losing class position, as the following entries also suggest: Everything except food, shelter, etc. that will ensure the minimum survival of a person has become a luxury. People work like donkeys and live hand to mouth. How are they any different from slaves? Then why are these people unhappy? That’s why they are unhappy. It can’t go on like this any longer. We’re wasting the best of times of our lives. Damn it. (okar-08.10.2020–21.19) Everything, living has now become equivalent to breathing in the country. We are not enough for anything; we cannot do anything. (antikahramanla-16.02.2022-00.45)

The final category of statements pertains to losing future expectations. This category involves newly emerging vulnerabilities that help make sense of economic turmoil. References to “hopes” (eight entries) and “dreams” (seven entries) fit into this category. “Personal career” (one entry), “savings” (five entries), “having weddings” (four entries), “starting a family” (five entries), “having and raising children” (four entries), “studying abroad” (five entries), and “having a quality life” (two entries) are expressions may be labeled as manifestations of fear about future opportunities: A one-week trip abroad. My wife and I both work and it is a luxury for us to be able to go to the EU countries. Even when we were students, we were able to have a holiday in luxury hotels in Italy with pocket money from the family, but it is very difficult now. Let’s say we forced ourselves and went abroad, is it



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worth going for this money in our country where the dollar and euro is flying? (popcornmaster-16.05.2022-01.03) Most people wrote about material things. I graduated 5 years ago. I was very excited; I was hopeful and I had dreams. Right now, there is no excitement, no hope, no dreams, nothing. To me, these look very luxurious in this country. (crblwhitebird-04.03.2022–16.15) 5 years ago, I had hopes and dreams for the future. Now I have none. (niccolopaganini-04.03.2022.15.16) (A3)

While they do not belong to any of the previous categories, “happiness” and “peace of mind” are statements with a relatively high number of entries (seventeen and seven, respectively) that appear to support each entry. “Happiness” and “peace of mind” may be thought to provide the emotional tone and experience of economic deterioration. Therefore, these statements are also discussed within the framework of social relationships through expressions such as “being human” (one), “human with healthy communication” (one), “humanity” (one), “finding reasonable” (three), “frank people” (one), “people to talk to spirituality” (one), “seeing happy people around the street who laugh and joke” (one), and “friendship” (one). These statements can be evaluated in parallel with qualities such as “thinking” (two), “honor and honesty” (two), “communication” (one), “character” (one), “living without compromising oneself” (one), and “being ashamed” (one). All these qualities probably indicate the impacts of economic decline on people’s social relationships. Throughout the entries analyzed in the Sour Dictionary title, users have often pointed out administrative persons and institutions in Turkey and the policies imposed by them as being responsible for the growing economic deterioration. Rather than naming individuals, however, the users have used phrases such as “those who govern us” and “those who put us in this mess.” For instance, despite the fact that the writers are anonymous to a certain extent, President Erdoğan has almost never been called by name but rather by his epithets in very few entries. There is a high likelihood that this fact is due to the insecurity felt under censorship policies aimed at controlling social media. In countries with various means of authoritative control over the opposition, social media provides a frame through which actors may convey their oppositional messages and gather potential supporters.66 Dollbaum mentioned three such frames emerging in social media: the prognostic frame with proposed solutions, the motivational frame that focuses on reasons for collective action, and the diagnostic frame with problem definition and blame

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attribution.67 Rather than the former two, the approach in Sour Dictionary seems to have more of a diagnostic frame, which “provides answers to the questions of ‘What is or went wrong?’ and ‘Who or what is to blame?’”68 To deal with the culpable parties, the users have employed many modes of assessments such as open, hidden, and evaluative critiquing; cynical, slangy, and ironic protests; complaints; humiliations; and even maledictions. Interestingly, however, not a single entry contains any modes of or projects for collective protest. Entries with explicitly political content bring “the principle of separation of power” (one), “law” (two), “justice” (three), “democracy” (two), “freedom” (five), “welfare” (one), “freedom of life and speech” (one), “freedom of thought” (one), “representation in the assembly as a Turkish nation” (one), “ethics” (one), “suing people in administrative positions” (one), “relegating the government” (one), “parliamentary system” (one), and “stability” (one) to the forefront political values that are luxuries now. All these expressions, however, are given solely through single statements without providing additional comments, as if the writers are speaking about their experienced truth. Using this fact in conjunction with the absence of an open or tacit call for resilience, we have concluded that the mode of dramatic expression in one way or another may be in itself political and thought to be effective and even a form of political resistance besides being well dramatized. The Sour Dictionary entry we analyzed does not primarily aim to build a social movement around a common cause. Rather, the entry reveals the writers’ experiences or opinions about economic situations. A different form of politicization seems to work here that does not directly invite the collective movement but locates resilience at the level of individual experiences and thoughts and the highly dramatic expressions of these experiences and thoughts. This type of politicization overlaps to some extent with the “Cause Hashtag” in Everett’s study,69 which provides a platform for individuals to discuss specific issues and need not be accompanied by any further action. Everett (2018) also investigated the ways individuals use the rhetoric of personal experience to politicize a conversation in the case of a Twitter campaign called #YesAllWomen.70 In fact, people can reveal their (otherwise private) preferences to one another and discover common ground in the digitally networked public sphere.71 Arguably, “dramatization as politics” fits well with the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of the young and educated middle class in Turkey; however, “dramatization as politics” also suggests that in the absence of a call for collective resistance, this class still strongly separate themselves from the poor class and perceive poverty to be far from them.



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CONCLUSION Most research regards poverty as an issue affecting the poorest segments of society and discusses it in terms of basic necessities, as primarily a matter of hunger and survival. While we do not disagree with this view, in this chapter we argue that poverty is also an issue for the middle class—especially during periods of economic turmoil. The middle class has a strong connection to consumerism and uses consumer products and experiences, such as shopping, to express exclusive lifestyles. Consumerism enables the middle classes to differentiate themselves not only from each other but also from the lower classes. The aftershocks of the 2008 European economic crisis began to hit Turkey in 2018. These aftershocks, coupled with unorthodox economic policies based on lowering the policy rate, led to soaring inflation. This inflation meant a diminishing purchasing power for the middle class in Turkey. In light of these circumstances, we decided to study the process of impoverishment among the middle class. To do this study, we analyzed the online platform called Sour Dictionary, where anonymous users—typically youth from an educated middle-class background—discuss any topic, including the current economic turmoil. Specifically, we examined the title, “things that were unexceptional 5 years ago but are currently luxurious,” with the aim of understanding both the basis and the consumer products people use to identify economic deterioration and how they approach or possibly resist this deterioration. We initially focused on the types of products mentioned and the number of times they are mentioned, and then we examined expressions that lacked product specificity. We concluded that first, among the educated middle class in Turkey, there exist fears about and even experiences of downgrading and anxieties about maintaining class position and uncertainty about the future. Second, we observed that all these fears and experiences are expressed in a dramatic tone that is, in a sense, political. For instance, the frequent use of food products to describe luxury and thus diminishing purchasing power reflects both the actual fear of losing class position and a political statement with the dramatic tone, “even this (food) is luxurious now.” We, furthermore, noticed that expressions such as “living” and “happiness” were used alone as single-word statements, often without further comment or evaluation, as if they were capable of describing poverty on their own. In the absence of any call or proposal for collective resistance even in entries with overt political content, these dramatic phrasings might still be political. This fact probably goes hand in hand with or even confirms the discourse that sees poverty as a problem at the individual level.

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Apparently, discussions about middle-class poverty will become increasingly prevalent in the future. The age of consumerism has, for a long time, provided the middle classes with the means of identifying themselves. However, diminishing purchasing power may mean a decline in this identification. Therefore, the middle classes may invent new strategies, vulnerabilities, sensibilities, and ways of resisting that might force future research to see poverty as a gradual process. NOTES 1. Bourbeu Philippe and Caitlin Ryan, “Resilience, Resistance, Infrapolitics and Enmeshment,” European Journal of International Relations 24, no. 1 (2017): 221–39. 2. Gerry Rodgers, “Introduction-Changing Perspectives on Poverty and Inequality: The Contributions of the International Labour Review,” International Labour Review (Centenary Collection) no. 7 (2021); Jo Walker et al., The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2022 (Oxford: Oxfam GB, 2022), https:​//​oxfamilibrary​ .openrepository​.com​/bitstream​/handle​/10546​/621419​/rr​-cri​-2022​-111022​-en​.pdf​ ;jsession​id​=C19921A7E5F86DDD335F0AEDDF396752​?sequence​=33. 3. Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp, “Synthesis and Policy Implications,” in Inequality in the Developing World, edited by Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). 4. Walker et al., The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2022, 62. 5. Jose Ramon G. Albert et al., Poverty, the Middle Class, and Income Distribution amid COVID-19 (Quezon City: Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 2020), 11, https:​//​think​-asia​.org​/bitstream​/handle​/11540​/12319​/pidsdps2022​.pdf​?sequence​ =1. 6. Edika G. Quispe-Torreblanca et al., “Inequality and Social Rank: Income Increases Buy More Life Satisfaction in More Equal Countries,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 47, no. 4 (2021). 7. Petar Stankov, The Political Economy of Populism: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2021), 21. 8. Regina Pleninger, Jakob de Haan, and Jan-Egbert Sturm, “The ‘Forgotten’ Middle Class: An Analysis of the Effects of Globalisation,” The World Economy 45 (2022): 77. 9. Julie MacLeavy and David Manley, “(Re)discovering the Lost Middle: Intergenerational Inheritances and Economic Inequality in Urban and Regional Research,” Regional Studies 52, no. 10 (2018). 10. Fabian T. Pfeffer and Nora Waitkus, “The Wealth Inequality of Nations,” American Sociological Review 86, no. 4 (2021): 590. 11. Bruno Palier, “Work, Social Protection and the Middle Classes: What Future in the Digital Age?” International Social Security Review 72 (2019): 123. 12. Palier, “Work, Social Protection and the Middle Classes,” 124.



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13. Brad Plumer, “How the Recession Turned Middle-Class Jobs into Low-Wage Jobs,” The Washington Post, February 28, 2013, https:​//​www​.washingtonpost​.com​ /news​/wonk​/wp​/2013​/02​/28​/how​-the​-recession​-turned​-middle​-class​-jobs​-into​-low​ -wage​-jobs​/. 14. Brian Nolan and David Weisstanner, “Has the Middle Secured Its Share of Growth or Been Squeezed?” West European Politics 44, no. 2 (2021): 435–36.. 15. Louis Chauvel et al., “Rewealthization in Twenty-First Century Western Countries: The Defining Trend of the Socioeconomic Squeeze of the Middle Class,” The Journal of Chinese Sociology 8, no. 4 (2021). 16. Michela Franceschelli and Avril Keating, “Imagining the Future in the Neoliberal Era: Young People’s Optimism and Their Faith in Hard Work,” Young 26, no. 4 suppl (2018). 17. Fahmida Rahman and Daniel Tomlinson, Cross Countries: International Comparisons of Intergenerational Trends (Resolution Foundation, 2018), 61, https:​//​www​ .resolutionfoundation​.org​/app​/uploads​/2018​/02​/IC​-international​.pdf. 18. Patricia Tevington, “Privileged to Worry: Social Class, Cultural Knowledge, and Strategies toward the Future among Young Adults,” The Sociological Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2018): 218. 19. Jennifer M. Silva and Kaisa Snellman, “Salvation or Safety Net? Meanings of ‘College’ among Working- and Middle-Class Young Adults in Narratives of the Future,” Social Forces 97, no. 2 (December 2018). 20. Christa Cassidy et al., Baby Bonds: A Universal Path to Ensure the Next Generation Has the Capital to Thrive (Oakland: The Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, 2019), https:​//​socialequity​.duke​.edu​/wp​-content​/ uploads​/2019​/12​/ICCED​-Duke​_BabyBonds​_December2019​-Linked​.pdf. 21. Simone Schotte, Rocco Zizzamia, and Murray Leibbrandt, “A Poverty Dynamics Approach to Social Stratification: The South African Case,” World Development 110 (October 2018): 89. 22. Pleninger, de Haan, and Sturm, “The ‘Forgotten’ Middle Class,” 97. 23. Martin Ravallion, “What Might Explain Today’s Conflicting Narratives on Global Inequality?” in Inequality in the Developing World, edited by Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 41. 24. Martin Ravallion, “The Developing World’s Bulging (but Vulnerable) Middle Class,” World Development 38, no. 4 (2010). 25. Hannah C.M. Bulloch, “Intergenerational aspirations across the life course in Asia,” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 22, no. 5 (2021): 369. 26. Charles H. Klein, Sean T. Mitchell, and Benjamin Junge, “Naming Brazil’s Previously Poor: ‘New Middle Class’ as an Economic, Political, and Experiential Category,” Economic Anthropology 5 (2018). 27. Mike Raco, “From Expectations to Aspirations: State Modernisation, Urban Policy, and the Existential Politics of Welfare in the UK,” Political Geography 28 (2009). 28. Jenny Preece et al. “Understanding Changing Housing Aspirations: A Review of the Evidence,” Housing Studies 35, no. 1 (2020).

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29. Alexander Nunn and Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, “Social Reproduction Strategies: Understanding Compound Inequality in the Intergenerational Transfer of Capital, Assets and Resources,” Capital & Class 43, no. 4 (2019): 629. 30. Marianne Nordli Hansen and Maren Toft, “Wealth Accumulation and Opportunity Hoarding: Class-Origin Wealth Gaps over a Quarter of a Century in a Scandinavian Country,” American Sociological Review 86, no. 4 (2021): 611–13. 31. Özlem Albayrak, “Avrupa Birliği Deneyiminin Işığında Kemer Sıkma Politikaları ve Türkiye’nin Krizi,” Mülkiye Dergisi 43, no. 1 (2019): 307. 32. Ziya Öniş and Mustafa Kutlay, “The Global Political Economy of Right-wing Populism: Deconstructing the Paradox,” The International Spectator 55, no. 2 (2020). 33. Şefika Kumral, “Globalization, Crisis and Right-wing Populists in the Global South: The Cases of India and Turkey,” Globalizations 20, no. 5 (2023): 752–81. 34. Pınar Enneli and Çağlar Enneli, “At the Intersection of Neo-liberalism and Islam: Being a Muslim Woman in Turkish Universities,” in Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism, edited by Mairtin Mac An Ghaill and Chris Haywood (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 35. Ziya Öniş, “Turkey under the Challenge of State Capitalism: The Political Economy of the Late AKP Era,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19, no. 2 (2019). 36. Kumral, “Globalization, Crisis and Right-wing Populists,” 24. 37. Berk Esen and Şebnem Gümüşçü, “Why did Turkish Democracy Collapse? A Political Economy Account of AKP’s Authoritarianism,” Party Politics 27, no. 6 (2021): 1087. 38. Pınar Bedirhanoglu, “Cumhurbaşkanlığı Hükümet Sistemi ve Türkiye’de Ekonomi Yönetiminin Dönüşümü,” in Nuray Ergüneş İçin Yazılar: Finansallaşma, Kadın Emeği ve Devlet, edited by Elif Karaçimen, Melda Yaman, Nurcan Özkaplan, Özgün Akduran, and Şebnem Oğuz (İstanbul: Sosyal Araştırmalar Vakfı (SAV), 2019). 39. Credit Suisse, Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2022: Leading Perspectives to Navigate the Future (Zurich: Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2022), 11. 40. Naki Bakır, “Gelirde Tarihi Küme Düşüşü,” Dünya Gazetesi, December 27, 2022, https:​//​www​.dunya​.com​/ekonomi​/gelirde​-tarihi​-kume​-dususu​-haberi​-675206. 41. Turkish Statistical Institute, “Tüketici Fiyat Endeksi, Aralık 2022, Tüketici Fiyat Endeksi (2003=100) Seçilmiş Maddelere Ait Ortalama Fiyatlar (Türkiye),” accessed January 30, 2023, https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Tuketici​-Fiyat​ -Endeksi​-Aralik​-2022​-49651. 42. İrem Çetin, “Yoksulluk ve Yoksulluk Göstergeleri: Türkiye ve OECD Ülkeleri Üzerine Bir Karşılaştırma,” Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi 22, no. 2 (2020): 510. 43. Turkish Statistical Institute, “Gelir ve Yaşam Koşulları Araştırması, 2021,” accessed January 30, 2023, https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Gelir​-ve​-Yasam​ -Kosullari​-Arastirmasi​-2021​-45581. 44. Berna Büyükbayrak, “Avrupa’da Ciddi Maddi Yoksunluk Oranı En Yüksek Üçüncü Ülke Türkiye,” Doğruluk Payı, October 20, 2019, https:​//​www​.dogrulukpayi​ .com​/bulten​/maddi​-yoksunluk.



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45. Lucas Chancel et al., World Inequality Report 2022 (World Inequality Lab, 2022), 221, https:​//​wir2022​.wid​.world​/www​-site​/uploads​/2021​/12​/World​Inequality​ Report​2022​_Full​_Report​.pdf. 46. Chancel et al., World Inequality Report 2022, 222. 47. Kumral, “Globalization, Crisis and Right-wing Populists,” 21. 48. Özgür Orhangazi and A. Erinç Yeldan, “The Re-making of the Turkish Crisis,” Development and Change 52, no. 3 (2021): 475. 49. Özlem Kızılgöl and Hakan Öndes, “2009–2019 Döneminde Türkiye’de Bireylerin Mutluluk Düzeylerinin İncelenmesi,” Yönetim ve Ekonomi Araştırmaları Dergisi 18, no. 4 (2020): 75. 50. Turkish Statistical Institute, “Yaşam Memnuniyeti Araştırması, 2021,” accessed January 30, 2023, https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Yasam​-Memnuniyeti​ -Arastirmasi​-2021​-45832​#:​​~:​text​=T​%C3​%BCrkiye’nin​%20​%49​%2C3​,y​%C4​%B1l​ %C4​%B1nda​%20​%16​%2C6​%20oldu. 51. Turkish Statistical Institute, “Yaşam Memnuniyeti Araştırması, 2021.” 52. “Beyin Göçü Liseden Başlıyor: Türkiye’den Her Yıl 50 Bin Öğrenci Gidiyor,” Cumhuriyet, accessed January 30, 2023, https:​//​www​.cumhuriyet​.com​.tr​/haber​/beyin​ -gocu​-liseden​-basliyor​-turkiyeden​-her​-yil​-50​-bin​-ogrenci​-gidiyor​-1821257. 53. Ebrar Nefes, “Among Other Things, That Is What I Choose to Do” - Understanding Migration Motivations of Highly Skilled Youth from Turkey by Looking at Capabilities and Aspirations” (Master thesis, Linköping University, 2020). 54. Abdulkadir Atik and Sevda Bozkurt, “Türkiye’den Sosyal Medya Platformu Olarak Ekşi Sözlüğün İletişimsel Eylem Kuramı Çerçevesinde İncelenmesi” (paper, II. İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Kongresi, Balıkesir, October 2019). 55. Alper İşleyen, “İnternet, Kamusal Alan ve Demokrasi: Ekşi Sözlük’te Bedelli Askerlik Tartışmaları Örneği,” Nosyon: Uluslararası Toplum ve Kültür Çalışmaları Dergisi 2 (2019): 54. 56. Banu Dağtaş and Erdal Dağtaş, “Habermas’ın Burjuva Kamusal Alanı Tanımı Çerçevesinde Yazılı Basının Konumu ve Dönüşümü,” Kurgu 20 (2003): 57. 57. Zehra Zeynep Fetvacı, “Haber Kaynağı Olarak Sosyal Medya Kullanim Tercihleri: Ekşi Sözlük Örneği” (PhD dissertation, T.C. Maltepe Üniversitesi, 2022), 178. 58. Ivo Ozan Furman, “User Generated Dissent: A Biographic Case Study of Peer Production Mechanisms on Eksisozluk.com” (PhD dissertation, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2016), 224. 59. House expenses included bills and maintenance products like detergents and paper tissues. 60. Health, education, and transportation were classified in this category. 61. “Going outside for a meal and drink” and “going outside for a meal and drink together with alcohol” are two categories that were clearly separated by Sour Dictionary writers, so we have treated them separately. 62. It should be noted that we counted not only the number of products but also the number of entries in which any of them was addressed. It was a necessary process because a great number of entries had addressed more than a single product from more than a single category. For instance, if any specific entry contains three food products, one type of holiday, and two technological tools, we first added three times

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to the Food category, one to the Holiday category, and two to the Technology category. Then we classified the entry as belonging to these three categories, with each category mentioned once. 63. Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 73–74. 64. The leader of the Republican People’s Party, the center-left main opposition party. 65. Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption (London: Routledge, 1979), 36–39. 66. Olga Onuch, “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media versus Social Networks,” Problems of Post-Communism 62, no. 4 (2015). 67. Jan Matti Dollbaum, “Social Policy on Social Media: How Opposition Actors Used Twitter and VKontakte to Oppose the Russian Pension Reform,” Problems of Post-Communism 68, no. 6 (2021): 510. 68. David A. Snow, “Framing and Social Movements,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, edited by David A. Snow et al. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2013), 3. 69. Annabelle Everett, “Making the #Personal #Political: Twitter as a Rhetorical Tool for Activist Campaigning” (Master thesis, University of Rhodes Island, 2018), 15. 70. Everett, “Making the #Personal #Political.” 71. Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 26.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Albayrak, Özlem. “Avrupa Birliği Deneyiminin Işığında Kemer Sıkma Politikaları ve Türkiye’nin Krizi.” Mülkiye Dergisi 43, no. 1 (2019): 305–33. Albert, Jose Ramon G., Abrigo, Michael Ralph M., Quimba, Francis Mark A., and Vizmanos, Jana Flor V. Poverty, the Middle Class, and Income Distribution amid COVID-19. Quezon City: Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 2020. https:​//​think​-asia​.org​/bitstream​/handle​/11540​/12319​/pidsdps2022​.pdf​?sequence​=1 Atik, Abdulkadir, and Bozkurt, Sevda. “Türkiye’den Sosyal Medya Platformu Olarak Ekşi Sözlüğün İletişimsel Eylem Kuramı Çerçevesinde İncelenmesi.” Paper presented at the II. İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Kongresi, Balıkesir, October 2019. Bakır, Naki. “Gelirde Tarihi Küme Düşüşü.” Dünya Gazetesi, December 27, 2022. https:​//​www​.dunya​.com​/ekonomi​/gelirde​-tarihi​-kume​-dususu​-haberi​-675206 Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998. Bedirhanoglu, Pınar. “Cumhurbaşkanlığı Hükümet Sistemi ve Türkiye’de Ekonomi Yönetiminin Dönüşümü.” In Nuray Ergüneş İçin Yazılar: Finansallaşma, Kadın Emeği ve Devlet, edited by Elif Karaçimen, Melda Yaman, Nurcan Özkaplan,



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Özgün Akduran, and Şebnem Oğuz, 211–32. İstanbul: Sosyal Araştırmalar Vakfı (SAV), 2019. Bourbeu, Philippe, and Ryan, Caitlin. “Resilience, Resistance, Infrapolitics and Enmeshment.” European Journal of International Relations 24, no. 1 (2017): 221–39. Bulloch, Hannah C.M. “Intergenerational Aspirations Across the Life Course in Asia.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 22, no. 5 (2021): 363–79. Büyükbayrak, Berna. “Avrupa’da Ciddi Maddi Yoksunluk Oranı En Yüksek Üçüncü Ülke Türkiye.” Doğruluk Payı, October 20, 2019. https:​//​www​.dogrulukpayi​.com​/ bulten​/maddi​-yoksunluk Cassidy, Christa, Heydemann, Rachel, Price, Anne, Unah, Nathaniel, and Darity Jr., William. Baby Bonds: A Universal Path to Ensure the Next Generation Has the Capital to Thrive. Oakland: The Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, 2019. https:​//​socialequity​.duke​.edu​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2019​/12​/ ICCED​-Duke​_BabyBonds​_December2019​-Linked​.pdf Chansel, Lucas, Piketty, Thomas, Saez, Emmanuel, and Zucman, Gabriel. World Inequality Report 2022. World Inequality Lab, 2022. https:​//​wir2022​.wid​.world​/ www​-site​/uploads​/2021​/12​/WorldInequalityReport2022​_Full​_Report​.pdf Chauvel, Louis, Haim, Eyal Bar, Hartung, Anne, and Murphy, Emily. “Rewealthization in Twenty-First Century Western Countries: The Defining Trend of the Socioeconomic Squeeze of the Middle Class.” The Journal of Chinese Sociology 8, no. 4 (2021): 1–17. Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2022: Leading Perspectives to Navigate the Future. Zurich: Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2022. Cumhuriyet. “Beyin Göçü Liseden Başlıyor: Türkiye’den Her Yıl 50 Bin Öğrenci Gidiyor.” Accessed January 30, 2023. https:​//​www​.cumhuriyet​.com​.tr​/haber​/beyin​ -gocu​-liseden​-basliyor​-turkiyeden​-her​-yil​-50​-bin​-ogrenci​-gidiyor​-1821257 Çetin, İrem. “Yoksulluk ve Yoksulluk Göstergeleri: Türkiye ve OECD Ülkeleri Üzerine Bir Karşılaştırma.” Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi 22, no. 2 (2020): 510–32. Dağtaş, Banu, and Dağtaş, Erdal. “Habermas’ın Burjuva Kamusal Alanı Tanımı Çerçevesinde Yazılı Basının Konumu ve Dönüşümü.” Kurgu 20 (2003): 49–61. Dollbaum, Jan Matti. “Social Policy on Social Media: How Opposition Actors Used Twitter and VKontakte to Oppose the Russian Pension Reform.” Problems of Post-Communism 68, no. 6 (2021): 509–20. Douglas, Mary, and Isherwood, Baron. The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption. London: Routledge, 1979. Enneli, Pınar, and Enneli, Çağlar. “At the Intersection of Neo-liberalism and Islam: Being a Muslim Woman in Turkish Universities.” In Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism, edited by Mairtin Mac An Ghaill and Chris Haywood, 161–78. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Esen, Berk, and Gümüşçü, Şebnem. “Why did Turkish Democracy Collapse? A Political Economy Account of AKP’s Authoritarianism.” Party Politics 27, no. 6 (2021): 1075–91.

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Everett, Annabelle. “Making the #Personal #Political: Twitter as a Rhetorical Tool for Activist Campaigning.” Master Thesis, University of Rhode Island, 2018. Fetvacı, Zehra Zeynep. “Haber Kaynağı Olarak Sosyal Medya Kullanım Tercihleri: Ekşi Sözlük Örneği.” PhD dissertation, T.C. Maltepe Üniversitesi, 2022. Franceschelli, Michela, and Keating, Avril. “Imagining the Future in the Neoliberal Era: Young People’s Optimism and Their Faith in Hard Work.” Young 26, no. 4 suppl (2018): 1–17. Furman, Ivo Ozan. “User Generated Dissent: A Biographic Case Study of Peer Production Mechanisms on Eksisozluk.com.” PhD dissertation, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2016. Gradín, Carlos, Leibbrandt, Murray, and Tarp, Finn. “Synthesis and Policy Implications.” In Inequality in the Developing World, edited by Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp, 321–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Hansen, Marianne Nordli, and Toft, Maren. “Wealth Accumulation and Opportunity Hoarding: Class-Origin Wealth Gaps over a Quarter of a Century in a Scandinavian Country.” American Sociological Review 86, no. 4 (2021): 603–38. İşleyen, Alper. “İnternet, Kamusal Alan ve Demokrasi: Ekşi Sözlük’te Bedelli Askerlik Tartışmaları Örneği.” Nosyon: Uluslararası Toplum ve Kültür Çalışmaları Dergisi 2 (2019): 50–63. Kızılgöl, Özlem, and Öndes, Hakan. “2009–2019 Döneminde Türkiye’de Bireylerin Mutluluk Düzeylerinin İncelenmesi.” Yönetim ve Ekonomi Araştırmaları Dergisi 18, no. 4 (2020): 73–90. Klein, Charles H., Mitchell, Sean T., and Junge, Benjamin. “Naming Brazil’s Previously Poor: ‘New Middle Class’ as an Economic, Political, and Experiential Category.” Economic Anthropology 5 (2018): 83–95. Kumral, Şefika. “Globalization, Crisis and Right-wing Populists in the Global South: The Cases of India and Turkey.” Globalizations 20, no. 5 (2023): 752–81. MacLeavy, Julie, and Manley, David. “(Re)discovering the Lost Middle: Intergenerational Inheritances and Economic Inequality in Urban and Regional Research.” Regional Studies 52, no. 10 (2018): 1435–46. Nefes, Ebrar. “Among Other Things, That Is What I Choose to Do” – Understanding Migration Motivations of Highly Skilled Youth from Turkey by Looking at Capabilities and Aspirations.” Master thesis, Linköping University, 2020. Nolan, Brian, and Weisstanner,David. “Has the Middle Secured Its Share of Growth or Been Squeezed?” West European Politics 44, no. 2 (2021): 426–38. Nunn, Alexander, and Tepe-Belfrage, Daniela. “Social Reproduction Strategies: Understanding Compound Inequality in the Intergenerational Transfer of Capital, Assets and Resources.” Capital & Class 43, no. 4 (2019): 617–35. Onuch, Olga. “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media versus Social Networks.” Problems of Post-Communism 62, no. 4 (2015): 217–35. Orhangazi, Özgür, and Yeldan, A. Erinç. “The Re-making of the Turkish Crisis.” Development and Change 52, no. 3 (2021): 460–503.



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Öniş, Ziya. “Turkey under the Challenge of State Capitalism: The Political Economy of the Late AKP Era.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19, no. 2 (2019): 201–25. Öniş, Ziya, and Kutlay, Mustafa. “The Global Political Economy of Right-wing Populism: Deconstructing the Paradox.” The International Spectator 55, no. 2 (2020): 108–26. Palier, Bruno. “Work, Social Protection and the Middle Classes: What Future in the Digital Age?” International Social Security Review 72 (2019): 113–33. Pfeffer, Fabian T., and Waitkus, Nora. “The Wealth Inequality of Nations.” American Sociological Review 86, no. 4 (2021): 567–602. Pleninger, Regina, de Haan, Jakob, and Sturm, Jan-Egbert. “The ‘Forgotten’ Middle Class: An Analysis of the Effects of Globalisation.” The World Economy 45 (2022): 76–110. Plumer, Brad. “How the Recession Turned Middle-Class Jobs into Low-Wage Jobs.” The Washington Post, February 28, 2013. https:​//​www​.washingtonpost​.com​/news​ /wonk​/wp​/2013​/02​/28​/how​-the​-recession​-turned​-middle​-class​-jobs​-into​-low​-wage​ -jobs​/ Preece, Jenny, Crawford, Joe, McKee, Kim, Flint, John, and Robinson, David. “Understanding Changing Housing Aspirations: A Review of the Evidence.” Housing Studies 35, no. 1 (2020): 87–106. Quispe-Torreblanca, Edika G., Brown, Gordon D. A., Boyce, Christopher J., Wood, Alex M., and De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel. “Inequality and Social Rank: Income Increases Buy More Life Satisfaction in More Equal Countries.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 47, no. 4 (2021): 519–39. Raco, Mike. “From Expectations to Aspirations: State Modernisation, Urban Policy, and the Existential Politics of Welfare in the UK.” Political Geography 28 (2009): 436–44. Rahman, Fahmida, and Tomlinson, Daniel. Cross Countries: International Comparisons of Intergenerational Trends. Resolution Foundation, 2018. https:​//​ www​.resolutionfoundation​.org​/app​/uploads​/2018​/02​/IC​-international​.pdf Ravallion, Martin. “The Developing World’s Bulging (but Vulnerable) Middle Class.” World Development 38, no. 4 (2010): 445–54. Ravallion, Martin. “What Might Explain Today’s Conflicting Narratives on Global Inequality?” In Inequality in the Developing World, edited by Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp, 321–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Rodgers, Gerry. “Introduction-Changing Perspectives on Poverty and Inequality: The Contributions of the International Labour Review.” International Labour Review (Centenary Collection) no. 7 (2021): 1–11. Schotte, Simone, Zizzamia, Rocco, and Leibbrandt, Murray. “A Poverty Dynamics Approach to Social Stratification: The South African Case.” World Development 110 (October 2018): 88–103. Silva, Jennifer M., and Snellman, Kaisa. “Salvation or Safety Net? Meanings of ‘College’ among Working- and Middle-Class Young Adults in Narratives of the Future.” Social Forces 97, no. 2 (December 2018): 559–82.

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Snow, David A. “Framing and Social Movements.” In The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Donatella Della Porta, Bert Klandermans, and Doug McAdam, 1–6. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2013. Stankov, Petar. The Political Economy of Populism: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2021. Tevington, Patricia. “Privileged to Worry: Social Class, Cultural Knowledge, and Strategies toward the Future among Young Adults.” The Sociological Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2018): 204–33. Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Turkish Statistical Institute. “Tüketici Fiyat Endeksi, Aralık 2022, Tüketici Fiyat Endeksi (2003=100) Seçilmiş Maddelere Ait Ortalama Fiyatlar (Türkiye).” Accessed January 30, 2023. https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Tuketici​-Fiyat​ -Endeksi​-Aralik​-2022​-49651 Turkish Statistical Institute. “Yaşam Memnuniyeti Araştırması, 2021.” Accessed January 30, 2023. https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Yasam​-Memnuniyeti​ -Arastirmasi​-2021​-45832​#:​​~:​text​=T​%C3​%BCrkiye’nin​%20​%49​%2C3​,y​%C4​ %B1l​%C4​%B1nda​%20​%16​%2C6​%20oldu Turkish Statistical Institute. “Gelir ve Yaşam Koşulları Araştırması, 2021.” Accessed January 30, 2023. https:​//​data​.tuik​.gov​.tr​/Bulten​/Index​?p​=Gelir​-ve​-Yasam​ -Kosullari​-Arastirmasi​-2021​-45581 Walker, Jo, Martin, Matthew, Seery, Emma, Abdo, Nabil, Kamande, Anthony, and Lawson, Max. The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2022. Oxford: Oxfam GB, 2022. https:​//​oxfamilibrary​.openrepository​.com​/bitstream​/handle​/10546​/621419​/rr​ -cri​-2022​-111022​-en​.pdf;jsessionid​=C19921A7E5F86DDD335F0AEDDF396752​ ?sequence​=33

‌‌‌C hapter Three

The Gold and the Olive Tree‌‌ Defending the Land in Turkey Selcan Serdaroğlu Polatay

As 2022 ends, the olive tree, also called the tree of eternity, continues to symbolize the struggles for the environment and the defense of life in Turkey. With a new regulation amending the Mining Regulation1 in March, mining in olive groves was allowed with conditions such as the transportation of the olive field and the rehabilitation of the field by those who will carry out such activities. However, the execution was stopped by the Council of State. In December, regulations allowing mining in olive groves were also included in a bag bill, the privileged decision-making method of political power. However, representatives from various environmental resistance movements in Turkey organized joint actions ensuring that these regulations were removed from the proposal. In the statement of the committee, which aims to protect the Akbelen forest against the coal mine capacity increase project in İkizköy, the following words stand out: “We will continue to defend and protect the olive, forest, soil, and life! Those who go to the parliament as our representatives—instead of representing us, defending our rights and working for the people—act as a proxy for the capital. They make laws for capital and for the plunder of people’s habitats, forests, natural and cultural assets.”2 Since the Bergama resistance, mentioned in the later sections of this chapter, olive groves have been at the focus of privatizing common goods and livelihoods as well as opening them to other rent-oriented activities. In Bergama, in the early 1990s, Eurogold, an Australia-based multinational company, started producing gold with cyanide. The villagers started a movement to protect the agricultural lands where they produce olives, cotton, and tobacco and the trees in the region against this cyanide separation and the dams where the cyanide water would be collected. From this first nonviolent 75

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life and nature defense social action in Turkey to the present day, initiatives that we can consider within the scope of environmental resistance have increased. Given the environmental, economic, and social effects of activities that are becoming more and more intense with the goal of economic growth, local populations are organizing in various ways. While the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas) presents data on sixty reported local environmental conflicts, we realize that this number is much higher today. In fact, since the 1990s, waves of increasingly diversified and amplified movements according to the economic activities envisaged by actors “foreign” to the local environment can be identified—first the mobilization of Bergama that opened the way for environmental resistance, and second the consecutive waves that began after 2000 to defend the rivers against hydroelectrical power plants (HEPPs) and against the impacts of accelerating public–private partnerships in energy and infrastructure as well as private projects in mining, construction, energy, and tourism. They take several forms of organization: associations, collectives, and platforms of ecology to defend the land, the seas, the atmosphere, forests, lakes, rivers, agricultural lands, wildlife, and livelihoods. The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution of environmental resistance in Turkey through two contexts of analysis: political economy and political ecology. First, we intend to clarify the conjunctions between neoliberal developmentalism in Turkey—increasing eagerness for extractivism and privatization of land—framed by the interconnection between the state and the market. Here, we attempt to answer whether global transformations or internal dynamics in Turkey are more effective in defining the economic growth–environmental exploitation nexus. We give examples of how excessive legalization and deregulations are used together in favor of extractivism as an accumulation tool. Second, forms of environmental movements will be analyzed from the point of view of political ecology. The will to defend nature and livelihood as a civic act is paradoxically the cause of being politically excluded, stigmatized, and even criminalized3 by dominant actors. The marginalized defender can be either an urban dweller concerned about irreversible environmental damage, claiming ecological citizenship, or a peasant who subsists in harmony with the related ecosystem. While their understanding of the human–nature relationship is crucial in defining their agency, their threat perceptions (environmental injustice, livelihood and health risks, political representation, and obstacles to participation) also impact the strategies and modes of action varying from using existing nonviolent instruments to creating a new political sphere—if possible, in interaction with translocal counterparts and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). While exemplifying these frameworks, we refer to the current movements in



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rural regions in Turkey, but as an illustrative case, we focus on the problems and resistance initiatives in the Eastern Thrace region. HOW TO FRAME ENVIRONMENTAL RESISTANCE? Environmental movements constitute a multidisciplinary field of research that has developed and diversified since the 1980s. Different definitions and analysis frameworks have emerged according to the characteristics of the parties and aims of environmental movements. For example, from a sociological perspective, Manuel Castells defines environmentalism as one of the movements against unjust globalization and as a form of collective behavior: this is “ecology in practice.” He identifies five types of environmental action: “conservation of nature,” “defense of own space” (“not in my backyard” or NIMBY), “counter-culture, deep ecology,”4 “save the planet,” and “green politics.” Nature conservation refers to wilderness conservation or mainstream environmentalism, starting in the late 1890s in the United States and continuing through interactions with radical environmentalists such as Earth First! The NIMBY movement also appeared in the United States at the end of the 1970s and reflected citizens’ concerns about the impact of toxic waste in their proximity. The objectives of communities regarding protecting their environment have multiplied over time because of different forms of damage resulting from both private and public activities. The movement is also at the origin of environmental justice because it is the minorities and/ or the underprivileged who suffer these impacts unequally. In the explanation of counter-culturalism, Castells refers to the deep ecology, as defined by Arne Naess, and recalls the eight principles he puts forward with George Sessions: they are based on the place of man in nature and the intrinsic value of all forms of life by denigrating the claim of superiority of human needs. The deep ecologist action examples are provided by Earth First! as the cradle of environmental radicalism in the United States, which does not hesitate to promote eco-sabotage as a tool and ecofeminism, which considers patriarchalism and androcentrism as the sources of the domination of nature. By the “save the planet” approach, Castells means nonviolent internationalist activism effectively represented by Greenpeace, while green politics refers to ecological citizenship, “concerned citizens” getting organized in green political parties such as German Greens.5 In the framework of security studies, Thomas Homer-Dixon sees environmental conflicts as conflicts related to environmental scarcity deriving from resource depletion and degradation, supply–demand pressures on resources, and structural wealth and power distribution issues in society. Starting from the local level, he explains how environmental scarcity can generate even

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violent conflicts and considers that conflicts at the local level are more likely to occur than those between the countries of the North and those of the South. At the local level, he notes the inequalities between the elites of a population and the most disadvantaged regarding access to natural resources.6 At the intersection of political ecology and ecological economics, Joan MartinezAlier considers environmentalism in three categories: “the cult of the wilderness,” “the gospel of eco-efficiency,” and the “environmentalism of the poor,”7 deriving from case studies in India and, afterward, Latin American countries.8 While the first one can be seen as a deep ecological awareness—again, such as that shown by the Earth First! movement in the United States—the second is interested in the efficient use of natural resources and sustainable development, such as the position of German Greens. The third one is a reaction to economic growth and refers to struggles for environmental justice in the Global South: “economic growth unfortunately means increased environmental impacts, and it emphasizes [the] geographical displacement of sources and sinks.”9 For Martinez-Alier, the poor do not identify themselves as environmentalists in these conflicts. Instead, they use a language that privileges a perception of nature’s intrinsic, even sacred value; on the other hand, they require (economic) compensation against the unequal distribution of externalities and benefits obtained by using natural resources. He argues that poor people defend nature for “resource conservation and [a] clean environment.”10 Thus, the common point of these definitions and classifications lies in the unequal distribution of the damage suffered and the gains obtained by the different categories of societies. Environmental resistance is a fight for environmental justice. It refers to power and wealth imbalances between these categories and gender issues that cause environmental degradation, showing that environmental bads, exclusion, and dispossession fall on the underprivileged social strata.11 In the next section, we briefly summarize the explanations of “ecological distribution conflicts” (EDCs), as put by Martinez-Alier, based on environmental justice by highlighting the dynamics of capital accumulation. ECOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION CONFLICTS These initiatives emerge in the framework of economic development models to increase industrial and agricultural production with new technologies supposedly reducing the need for material resources as well as creating risks. EDCs are about access to the benefits of natural resources and the environment with multidimensional factors: natural, social, economic, political, and technological.12 They are “social conflicts born from the unfair access to



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natural resources and unjust burdens of pollution.”13 Furthermore, environmental justice and debates on values come into play, such as the incommensurability of nature according to ethical, cultural, and religious backgrounds. One can find early roots of ecological conflict analysis in Karl Marx’s concept of social metabolism. His observation of the destructive consequences of the second agrarian revolution on the quality of the soil—“soil exhaustion”—in capitalist agricultural production gave rise to the concept of “metabolic rift.” He noted that “large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture was impoverishing both the soil and the worker.” As a result, the interaction process of the social metabolism (interaction between man and nature “through labor”) that depended on the laws of nature was in a state of rupture—an “irreparable rift.” The concept of “metabolic rift” was further developed by John Bellamy-Foster.14 Thus, “the analysis of the ecological conflict is the analysis of the struggle against the metabolic rift” arising from the capitalist world-economy.15 Martinez-Alier also used the framework of social metabolism to understand the linkages between EDCs and the increase in human population and economic growth by underlining the three-tier relation between the increasing social metabolism of human economies pushed by population and economic growth, the resulting ecological distribution conflicts among human groups, and then the different languages of valuation deployed historically and currently by such groups when they reaffirm their rights to use the environmental services and products in dispute.16 Anguelovski and Martinez-Alier17 put the cause of environmental conflicts as the clash between the economy and the environment. Two facts generate this shock: population growth and commodity frontiers’ expansion. “Commodity frontier” is a term developed by Jason W. Moore, who links it to the “world-system’s concept of commodity chain,” to explain “the ways in which place-specific commodity production shapes and is shaped by the socio-spatial expansion of the law of value—ongoing primitive accumulation—under which people are forced to ‘sell to survive.’”18 The social metabolism of industrial economies requiring more materials and energy is the main reason for this expansion. For the countries of the Global South, their social metabolism’s transformation is a factor to be considered within the dynamics of center–periphery. Conflicts in the Global South emanating from urban restructuring, developmentalist strategies, privatizations, extractivism, and neoliberal political changes to address economic crises are increasing dramatically. Turkey is no exception. Another early reference used is Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation by detecting parallels between his dual movement dialectic and current activism for social justice and environmental sustainability. According to Scheidel et al.,

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Karl Polanyi (1944) argued that a double movement exists, meaning a dialectical process of marketisation and push for social protection against that marketisation. Here, we see that a double movement exists where environmental justice movements react to socio-metabolic configurations that are unsustainable in either their biophysical characteristics or governance.19

In the same way, according to J.H. Mittelman, Polanyi’s double movement can be used to “understand the resistance” since it put forward the “specific institutional arrangements by which particular societies ensure their livelihood” in front of the disembeddedness of market. If societies seek to protect themselves from the traumatic effects of the market, how can resistances “solidify and actually take shape as countermovements” to “re-embed the economy in society and nature”?20 Based on these roots, the theoretical framework of environmental conflicts considers the effect of the economy (capitalism and capital accumulation) and the analysis of the political/social interaction area to understand the causes of the conflict and the interests, expectations, and strategies of the parties involved. Economic explanations range from the critique of privatization as a solution to the tragedy of the commons put forward by Garrett Hardin21 to the problem of accumulation by dispossession deepened by neoliberal globalization and developed by David Harvey. The tragedy of the commons claims that the resources that do not have property rights will be rapidly depleted, degraded, and ruined. The definition of property rights, privatization, would ensure a more responsible and careful use. However, by examining the use of such resources by traditional societies, studies showed that, on the contrary, their practices were more sustainable than the methods brought from outside, such as Fikret Berkes’s many works on “community-based resource management,” especially in fisheries.22 Finally, one should remember Elinor Ostrom, who put forward a conceptual counter-thesis based on empirical studies in Governing the Commons and argued that privatization was not the “only way.”23 David Harvey’s correction of the use of “primitive accumulation” for designating the flow of raw materials from the periphery to the center gave rise to the concept of “accumulation by dispossession.” Capitalism may use geographical expansion to access cheaper inputs such as land, raw materials, and labor power to resolve the overaccumulation crisis. However, according to Harvey, alongside such accumulation by dispossession tools, new tools have emerged, such as the “wholesale commodification of nature in all its forms,” which led to the depletion of the environmental commons and privatizations.24 Both contexts have a link with environmental justice concerning the distribution of risks, access to natural resources, and material disadvantages



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incumbent on vulnerable categories of society. Two types of movements are associated with this conception, the environmental justice movement in the United States, which gave rise to the approaches of NIMBY and NIABY (“not in anybody’s backyard”) in connection with the idea of environmental racism as well as risks and deprivations affecting ethnic minorities and the poor.25 The environmentalism of the poor, mentioned previously, is associated with Global South movements against the environmental degradation and socioeconomic destructions driven by globalization. METHODOLOGY As Scheidel et al. pointed out, there is a remarkable weight of local “site-specific” studies in environmental conflict analysis. A methodological improvement was possible when researchers started to describe the underlying factors—actors of environmental resistance, their aims, strategies, and common values as well as the forms of action they use through comparative case studies.26 Similar frameworks are used in these studies by focusing on the history and sources of the conflicts. Then the actors, their strategies, and their forms of action are presented based on field research through interviews. Standardized data collection was a second step toward a more systematic analysis framework thanks to successive environmental justice research projects supported by the European Union: the Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities, and Trade between 2011 and 2015 as well as the ENVJUSTICE research project starting from 2016.27 EJAtlas28 is a significant outcome that gathers information about the reported conflicts worldwide and provides multi-criteria classifications such as populations involved, types, conflict intensity, duration, success level, impacts, consequences, etc. Different components of a three-dimensional methodological framework were selected to explain environmental resistance in Turkey. Local site-specific studies and studies on examples from different countries were used to understand the development of environmental movements in Turkey. Thus, whether there were differences over time in terms of content, target, participation, and discourse was evaluated. The structures of the movements were defined in the light of analysis schemes presented in comparative studies and the data and criteria of EJAtlas, as we explain in the third section. While trying to draw a general framework, we focused on the conflicts in the Thrace region as an illustrative case. Unstructured in-depth interviews were conducted with people who have been actively involved in many initiatives in this region for nearly thirty years. These interviews were done in November 2022 with two activists from successive generations, the first interview being direct and the second online, and a lawyer-activist (a telephone interview)

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who played an essential role in several lawsuits brought by local populations against public and private projects and environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports that do not reflect the true extent of the environmental and social consequences. Besides providing qualitative data, their guidance helped selectively study local NGO reports and consider opinions, testimonies, and news published in local/national media. The choice of participants was not intended to constitute a gender- and age-specific sample but rather to collect information related to the context of resistance: have there been changes since the first mobilizations from the beginning of the 1990s to the present day concerning the types of actors, the methods of action, and the interactions with public authorities and private bodies? How does the legal process unfold, and how do citizens act to bring and follow lawsuits? Finally, how successful is local environmental resistance? Have citizen mobilizations served to repair the damage caused, to prevent others and ensure environmental justice? The next section looks at how neoliberal developmentalism and extractivism are taking shape in Turkey from a political economy perspective. This allows us to observe the incompatibility of environmental protection legislation and economic expectations and to notice striking contrasts. At the same time, we emphasize that regulations are made under the guise of legality to facilitate activities whose results can be defined as ecocide. The following section gives an ecological political analysis of environmental resistance. The latter had been put forward for the study of EDCs by Joan Martinez-Alier. Within two styles of political ecology that he depicts—the “fusion of human ecology with political economy” and constructivist “discourse analysis”—we will assess the environmental resistance according to the first one: “actors with different interests contesting the claims of others to resources in a particular ecological context.”29 POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NEOLIBERAL DEVELOPMENTALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES Our aim here is not to delve into the details of Turkey’s contemporary economic history. However, certain elements should be mentioned to understand how extractivism prevails today over the objectives of sustainable development, legislation, and international commitments of the state concerning multilateral environmental agreements. In environmental resistance studies, EDCs in the Global South are seen as a reflection of center–periphery relations, as a result of the social metabolism of the center and the expansion of the commodity frontiers of capitalism. Nevertheless, the social metabolism



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change in the periphery and semi-periphery also has an effect. Turkey, which was described as one of the “rising powers” of the Global South in the early 2010s, has certainly experienced such a change. We argue that the effect of systemic dynamics as the origin of the conflicts that we will examine in the next section is less effective than the internal transformation because we understand that a “state–capital symbiosis” has formed mainly to serve the accumulation purposes of local capital, although multinational companies are investing in extractivist activities. As Aykut Çoban quotes from Taylor and Flint (2000),30 “state and corporation exist in a sort of symbiotic relationship, with each needing the other. Every state requires capital accumulation within its territory to provide the material basis of its power. Every corporation requires the legal conditions for accumulation that the state provides.” We cannot deny that this relationship has also been established with multinational companies, especially in gold mining; the names of companies that cause environmental justice problems come to the fore: Eurogold in Bergama; Alamos Gold in Mount Ida; Eldorado Gold in Kışladağ and Efemçukuru; Teck and Fronteer Eurasia in the Northern Aegean region; Ariana Resources in Salinbaş, Ardala, Tavşanlı, and Simav; and Stratex (Oriole Resources PLC) in Altıntepe are some of the companies that make foreign direct investments in Turkey through joint venture or acquisition. In this sector especially, a primitive accumulation/accumulation-by-dispossession process reminiscent of Latin American countries’ integration into the global economy became a reality in Turkey. However, today’s investments in construction, infrastructure, mining, tourism, and energy, causing numerous conflicts, are mostly realized through local capital–state symbiosis and the establishment of internal accumulation networks. As pointed out by Özkaynak et al., “contrary to its Latin American counterparts, extractivism in Turkey is not export driven but rather based on the domestic consumption of resources.”31 The symbiosis flourishes in the interdependence of profitability and neoliberal developmentalist political power’s entrenchment. Again, when we look briefly at the foreign trade statistics within the framework of systemic dynamics, we see that Turkey is not an economy where the commodity frontier of global capitalism expands. At least, it does not seem possible to make a convincing explanation in terms of mining products. When we look at the export data of the World Trade Organization,32 we find that on the product grouping basis, mining activities have a low share in Turkey’s total exports (table 3.1). Over the years, the share of exports of minerals, petroleum, metals and ores, and coal mines in total exports remains small and changes very slightly. For example, according to World Trade Organization statistics, between 1990 and 2020, the share of fuels and mines in total exports of merchandise varied between 8.19 percent (2010) and 3.61 percent (2000). In 2020, the rate was 6.72 percent. The share of manufactures is expressively higher, and during

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Table 3.1. Turkey’s total merchandise, fuels, and mining product and manufacture exports between 1990 and 2020 (millions of US dollars) Year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Total merchandise 12,959 13,595 14,716 15,343 18,106 21,599 23,245 26,260 26,881 26,587 27,775 31,334 36,059 47,253 63,167 73,476 85,535 107,272 132,027 102,143 113,883 134,907 152,462 161,481 166,505 150,982 149,247 164,495 177,169 180,833 169,638

Fuels and mining products 876 749 661 575 719 1002 971 992 1,033 1,078 1,005 1,140 1,401 1,928 2,803 4,454 6,389 8,868 11,900 7,030 9,331 12,032 13,446 13,166 12,223 10,283 8,337 10,977 12,741 14,854 11,409

Manufactures 8,778 8,935 10,491 11,017 13,127 16,041 17,117 19,754 20,799 21,023 22,311 25,566 29,934 39,426 53,217 59,757 68,987 86,652 103,773 78,124 88,481 104,210 107,887 115,487 120,910 112,248 112,207 125,567 139,429 140,945 131,700

Source: Created by the author.

the same period, it varied between 81.81 percent (2005) and 67.73 percent (1990); in 2020, they represented 77.63 percent of total merchandise exports. Therefore, the expansion of mining activities in Turkey cannot be explained by an increasing cheap input demand of global capitalism. Thus, without ignoring the effect of globalization, we explain that a metabolic rift has emerged as a result of local practices of neoliberalism in Turkey. We first focus on local features and factors that explain why the metabolic rift was needed. Second, we determine what the tools of this rift are. We are particularly interested in developments showing that urgent expropriation decisions and the privatization of commons cause the dispossession and



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destruction of nature. Finally, by giving examples of the dimensions of the deregulation of environmental protection legislation, we try to understand what society objected to and whose consent is sought with the promise of development, growth, and enrichment. FROM STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS TO STATE CAPITALISM: A CONSTRUCTED METABOLIC RIFT In Turkey, developmentalism became one of the main items of the political agenda after 1950. Until the 1980s balance of payments crisis, governments applied the import substitution industrialization model to increase production capacity and achieve economic growth. Selective protectionism and five-year development plans were the main mechanisms. However, it ended in a crisis with the influence of external and internal factors. Before the 1980 military coup, the opening of the economy became a priority with the January 24 liberalization decisions. Structural adjustment programs, implemented under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, introduced export-oriented industrialization. The state became the securing force of liberal capitalist development.33 Economic growth–oriented policies prevailed, and their social and environmental consequences were the price of progress. Therefore, neoliberal policies and privatizations, one of its fundamental practices, have been effective since the 1980s. These policies have gained weight because of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s neoliberal developmentalism ideology and as an effect of globalization since the 2000s. In many studies published in the first half of the 2010s, high growth rates are seen to be related to the successful implementation of neoliberal policies by the ruling party, and Turkey is described as a “rising power.” It is even stated that in the eyes of the electorate, the party is the choice that can guide them through the “troubled waters of globalization” and manage neoliberal expansionism in times of crisis.34 A free-market economy supported by reforms and higher growth rate goals to improve general wellbeing (with an inclusive growth discourse inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]) and a regulated, almost re-embedded neoliberalism, assumed to be the main drivers, are presented as sources of Turkey’s integration to globalization. We see that this view changed toward the end of the 2010s, and criticism has been made regarding neoliberal policies’ brutal practices and capitalism’s local characteristics. In this context, deregulated and expanding extractivism cannot be explained by external factors in terms of global accumulation by dispossession dynamics but mostly in terms of internal factors. As Martinez-Alier suggests, “the encounter between economic growth,

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inequality, and environmental degradation must be analysed in terms of power relations.”35 There are many studies and publications on the political economy of Turkish capitalism and the transformation of the last twenty years. Naturally, it is only possible to mention some of them here. However, with the main features and findings they emphasize, we can understand the unlimited environmental exploitation that has led to the proliferation of environmental resistance today. Ali Burak Güven underlines three types of features representing the point reached by capitalism in Turkey: authoritarian neoliberalism, crony capitalism, and state capitalism.36 Authoritarian neoliberalism can be an explanatory framework for the forms of resistance caused by how political power governs. Tansel presents it as a mode of governance based on “twin principles”: the closing of key decision-making processes to popular pressures “to protect capital accumulation circuits” and “deploying the coercive, legal, and administrative state apparatuses to marginalize democratic opposition and dissident social groups.”37 Borsuk et al. outline the executive centralization, autocratic legalism, cronyism, rentier accumulation obtained by violence, and criminalization/stigmatization of opponents as instruments of neoliberal authoritarianism in Turkey.38 In the definition of cronyism, “state capture” is an important phenomenon to be depicted. This refers to collusion among the interests of political powers and firms or “interest intermediation”39 and the forging of “a new regime of accumulation where novel alliances between state and corporate actors.” The latter may interfere with the legislation and decision-making processes and obtain economic gains by accessing “rent-seeking opportunities”40 in energy, construction, infrastructure, and mining. Thus, there is a close linkage between cronyism and extractivism. On the other hand, global factors and internal decision-making processes’ centralization shape state capitalism. After the 2008 crisis, the state’s reassuming of its regulatory role and the attempt to overcome the problem of capitalism’s profitability with authoritarian policies created mechanisms in which the state determines how and who will use the resources. Ali Burak Güven identifies the success of China’s economic model as a second external factor. Outputs such as the economic growth rate, the weight of its share in global production, and foreign trade surplus cause a desire to follow similar methods. Accordingly, “neodevelopmentalist” goals emerge in Turkey.41 In fact, the “developmental state” must bear some characteristics to be performant, internal, and external capacities, according to Kutlay and Karaoğuz. The first one derives from the degree of bureaucratic autonomy regarding private interest groups; the second shows the state’s ability to “manage its economic environment and its relations with business groups.”42



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Unfortunately, the current developmental perspective in Turkey appears to be problematic at both levels as the government endorsed rent-oriented activities, for instance the construction sector necessitating land appropriations (urban and rural) and extractive industries. Somewhere between state capture and centralization, the effects, such as providing capital accumulation for companies close to political power and disrupting bureaucratic autonomy, dominate. In sectors such as energy, infrastructure, and mining, “capital accumulation networks”43 are formed by watching over companies close to political power. The more widespread use of the bargaining method in public tenders, the procurement of infrastructure investment tenders by companies,44 the realization of public–private partnerships with the preference of specific companies, the free transfer of the lands determined for these investments, and the decisions of “no environmental impact assessment (EIA)45 required” support this process. Tansel posits, “The nexus of privatization and environmental exploitation has been enhanced in the service of a ‘growth’ strategy,” and he asserts that the acceleration and intensification of privatizations since 2003 has seriously affected employment and the environment. Quoting the work of Buğra and Savaşkan (2014), he draws attention to the fact that privatizations lead to deregulations in environmental protection legislation, increasing the number of HEPPs, 70 percent of which were exempt from EIAs by 2013. Likewise, he declares that mining exploration and operation licenses were issued more intensively in naturally protected areas.46 A justification for these actions based on an intensive use of land and natural resources comes from the conception of sustainable development, taken as a tool for green growth. Already, the concept is included in the five-year development plans with the Ninth Development Plan (2007–2013); the sustainable development strategy is linked to urban planning (construction sector) and renewable energy. In the Tenth Plan (2014–2018), territorial development, urban transformation, and rural development are also integrated in this strategy. Then in the strategy document prepared for Rio+20 (2012), Turkey’s Sustainable Development Report: Claiming the Future, energy, transport, agriculture, industry, and services are presented as the pioneer sectors of green growth, underlining once again centrality urban regeneration: “A comprehensive urban regeneration program has been initiated recently in order to increase the quality of life in urban areas and to create healthy and safe living environments on the areas under disaster risk and remaining areas where building safety is poor.”47 With the integration of the SDGs into the Eleventh Plan (2019–2023), more framed strategies have been posted under the heading of “Livable Cities and Sustainable Environment” while repeatedly emphasizing the goal of economic growth’s sustainability and accelerated industrialization. In the two voluntary reports evaluating the

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implementation of the SDGs, in 2016 and 2019, we also see the importance given to green growth by linking investments in several sectors to specific SDG objectives: for example, the construction of green ports (Green Port Project) is presented as a project not only reinforcing business standards but also supporting environmental awareness within the framework of SDG 9: Build Resilient Infrastructure, Promote Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialization, and Foster Innovation.48 TOOLS OF THE METABOLIC RIFT There have been significant developments within the framework of public interest regarding expropriation in Turkey. Public interest is a principle left to the discretion of the administration that cannot be defined precisely as it will vary in terms of what will be beneficial to society and when.49 Based on the twenty-seventh article of the Expropriation Law No. 2942, which recognizes the possibility of urgent expropriation for public interest, the political power made several arrangements to include different domains in this scope: tourism, energy, and urban renewal. In particular, the urgent expropriation decisions of agricultural lands and pastures and private properties are explained by public interest. Several decisions were made by the Council of Ministers before the constitutional change in 2017 and by the presidential decrees afterward: in 2014, the urgent expropriation of lands on and surrounding the discharge lines and water treatment facilities of the Ergene Deep Sea Discharge Project, of olive groves in Yırca, Manisa, for the construction of a thermic power plant, and of properties in Arhavi for the construction of a HEPP; in 2017, urgent expropriations of first-class agricultural lands in the Thrace region to put to good use lignite coal and the construction of thermic power plants; and in 2022, expropriations for energy projects in several provinces (i.e., Konya, Aydın, Kastamonu, etc.). After all, too many decisions have been made to list here. However, excluding the issue of expropriation of private property, the urgent expropriation decisions of commons such as agricultural lands, pastures, water basins, forests, and coasts create ecological distribution inequalities, making them exclusively available for private use. The mining sector’s regulation controversies and executive power’s decisions offer another example of dispossession for “public interest,” depriving communities of ecosystemic services in environmental economics terms in favor of the economic interests of private corporations. For example, since 2016, several protected “great plains” have been determined by the decisions of the Council of Ministers and presidential decrees, only to be used as agricultural land. However, the regulation on the protection, use, and planning of agricultural land includes an article (Article 19) that allows the “off-target”



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use of these areas for other activities of public interest. In the same way, Law No. 5403 (on the protection, use, and planning of agricultural land) specifies the types of nonagricultural activities permitted, if the ministries concerned recognize that these activities are of public interest: “Oil and natural gas exploration and operation activities” and “Mining activities with a public interest decision by the relevant ministry,” among others.50 Thus, mining licenses have been granted to projects within the limits of some of these great plains or agricultural lands. These exceptions and the provisions—which, in effect, require potential users not to harm the environment and to restore it to its initial state at the end of the concession period—legalize projects having destructive effects on protected areas. In the following figure, we gathered data collected by the TEMA Foundation51 from the General Directorate of Mining and Petroleum Affairs (Maden ve Petrol İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü) (table 3.2). The data shows that almost all of Kütahya’s agricultural and natural areas have been opened to mineral exploration and operation projects. They also indicate that in the Thrace region where first- and second-class agricultural lands are located or in the agricultural areas, natural protection areas, and cultural protection areas of Mount Ida, the special statuses determined are disabled. We understand that protected and special protection areas cannot remain as such. Therefore, we next examine how these areas are specified and how related environmental regulations are derogated. The environment has become a part of the political agenda since the 1980s. Recognition of the right to a healthy environment dates back to 1982, under Article 56 of the 1982 Constitution. Environmental Law No. 2872 was enacted in 1983 and amended seventeen times until the end of 2022. The Ministry of Environment was founded in 1991 primarily to facilitate the participation of Turkey at the Rio Conference. The regulatory framework was also built from the beginning of the 1990s—for example, with the entry into force of the first regulation on EIA in 1993, amended sixteen times and modified six times until today. Since the 1980s, Turkey has also ratified multilateral environmental agreements that were entered into its domestic law, as required by Article 90 of the constitution.52 The World Heritage Convention came into force in 1983, the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention) in 1984, the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar Convention) in 1994, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna in 1996, and the Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution (Barcelona Convention) in 2002. These documents are also specified in the EIA regulation and are supposed to form the conservation framework.53 However, although in most environmental

65

79

71 58

91 52 59

38 74 72

52

1,706

1,634

1,455 1,416

1,283 1,155 1,149 522 444 435 159

100

Source: Created by the author.

Tekirdağ-Kırklareli (2021) Kaz Dağları (ÇanakkaleBalıkesir) (2020) Eskişehir (2021) Kahramanmaraş (2021) Kütahya (2022) Afyon (2021) Muğla (2021) Artvin (2021) Karaman (2021) Ordu (2021) Zonguldak-Bartın (2021) Erzincan-Tunceli (2021)

Region

60

45 63 47 41 91 71

59 56

55

83

52

94 50 65 65 31 65 64

53 55

80

68

62

36 51 57 68 80 61

76 69

95

78

42

76 66

48 47

90

50

78

63

-

-

-

66

54 41 64

90 63

66 65

73

-

-

-

73

31

85 19 23 77 94 78

67 56

66

77

Percentage Percentage Number Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage of historof special of conof minof drainage ical-cultural conserPercentage conservation of agricul- of grazing Percentageof servation vation areas basins tural land ing land areas of forests areas licenses total area

Table 3.2. Mining licenses and percentages of agricultural and conservation areas opened for mining activities (2020–2021)



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struggles, the effective participation of the relevant public in decision-making and access to information is a problem, Turkey is not a party to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). Turkey became progressively a party to conventions and protocols deriving from the Rio Conference, but we cannot say that it is always the result of environmental awareness. It was also a matter of being accepted as a developing country, setting a strategy according to common but differentiated responsibilities, and prioritizing its “socioeconomic conditions and development”54 and requesting financial and technical support accordingly. We argue that this developmentalist strategy prevailed in all the dimensions of Turkey’s environmental policies, abroad and at home. After presenting a brief historical perspective on environmental protection, we would like to focus on two situations. The first is the natural protection areas where the protection status has lost its meaning with the regulation changes. The second is the EIA regulation changes, especially the one made in July 2022 and taken to the Council of State by the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, and Doğa Derneği55 and how effective they are. First, in Turkey, protected areas are specified according to the Regulation on Procedures and Principles Regarding the Detection, Registration, and Approval of Protected Areas, adopted in 2012. The regulation provides the criteria for the registration of natural sites, sensitive areas to be strictly protected, qualified natural protected areas, sustainable conservation and controlled use areas, natural assets, special environmental protection zones, national parks, nature parks, natural monuments, nature protection areas, wetlands, and also activities and not-permitted activities within the limits of these areas. However, with the changes made in 2013, 2017, 2020, and 2022, these areas’ conditions of use have expanded and become much more flexible. The amendments have particularly affected the definitions of qualified nature reserves and sustainable conservation and use areas, increasing the number and scope of activities permitted there. In particular, the 2020 and 2022 amendments made qualified protected areas available for the following activities, according to the regional commissions’ assessments: agricultural activities without integrated facilities; medicinal and aromatic plant applications; livestock farming without integrated facilities; recreational piers and piers built with the decision of the zoning plan and using floating systems; applications for the use of natural spring water; dams and ponds for drinking water purposes; aquaculture fishing activities except natural lakes and seas, aquaculture activities; compulsory technical infrastructure applications; transportation lines and their mandatory structures; electricity transmission lines/plants; drinking and utility water lines; wastewater lines; transformers;

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communication services; open parking lots and their contribution to the protection of the area; energy transmission lines (which are compatible with public interest given the nature of their activities and the geographical structure of the area); facilities that are essential for national security; fishermen’s shelters (provided that they are limited to the needs of the local people and their total construction does not exceed 2 percent of the land area); hydroelectric, wind, and solar power plants; ponds for agricultural irrigation (provided that they are limited to the production capacity in the Annex 2 list of the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulation); and outdoor sports that are compatible with the natural structure and do not use materials such as concrete and asphalt. Sustainable and controlled used areas were opened to integrated facilities for agriculture and livestock; hydroelectric, wind, and solar power plants; tourism; settlements; and mining.56 Thus, the protection concept, despite the legal framework, has different content than it should have, or this legal framework actually turns out to be an empty shell. Second, the EIA framework is more concretely the manifestation of the neoliberal developmentalist understanding that undermines environmental justice. As mentioned before, the EIA regulation has been amended sixteen times and modified six times.57 We will not cover all the changes here. Nevertheless, we will highlight some results jeopardizing the two main purposes of EIA: conscious choices about the environmental impacts and citizen involvement in the process, entered into the Turkish EIA regulation in the context of the European Union membership perspective. The second regulation in 1997 aimed to harmonize with the EU EIA Directive at that time and included citizen involvement. After the recognition of Turkey’s candidacy for full membership in 1999, effective public participation became possible with the new regulation that came into force in 2002, a priority determined within the scope of EU progress reports.58 Public participation is one issue that creates conflict not only in Turkey but also in different examples from the Global South. The evaluation process consists of several stages, and the population that will be affected has the right to obtain information and object at some points of these stages. However, the local population or the community should receive technical and legal support from lawyers and professional associations. Obtaining information about the scope of a project—whether it requires an EIA report, if an EIA report has been prepared, how reliable its calculations and determinations are—and exercising the right to information and object require such help. The final regulation, dated July 2022, presented by the ministry as required by “green growth goals,” changes the definition of “people,” rendering this line of cooperation unlikely. With the last modification, the previous “people” definition—including “one or more legal persons or their union, organization, or group” with the citizens—became limited to citizens and residents



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in Turkey, outing NGOs from the process and introducing the “Stakeholder Engagement Plan,” “to be submitted by the institutions authorized by the ministry and in the EIA application file” (Article 9, paragraph 5).59 Therefore, one of the EIA’s main purposes is made unclear through (de)regulation. The public participation process is centrally controlled and left to the discretion of companies and the ministry. The last point that deserves to be emphasized is the increase in the number of positive EIAs and, more spectacularly, EIA–not-required decisions. The following figures60—retrieved from the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change website—show the totals for these decisions and the breakdown by sector. In fact, “EIA not-required” does not mean that no assessment is required. If the data regarding the scope and capacity of the activity to be carried out is within the limits included in the Annex 2 (Projects Subject to Pre-Review and Evaluation) list of the regulation, the applicant company/institution must prepare an introductory file, which also includes environmental assessments. As a result of the positive approval of this file by the relevant administrative units, the provincial environmental directorates decide that the final EIA is not required. However, the following emerges as a fact: the information provided by the companies that their projects do not have an environmental impact is sufficient for the decision-makers. Thus, the numbers and ratios illustrate how the economic growth and environmental exploitation nexus operates without additional explanation. Rather than creating a legal framework for protecting the environment, it seems that the aim is to prevent the related regulations from creating an obstacle to profitability and capital accumulation. With the new regulation, new fields of activity have been added to the Annex 1 list (List of Projects Subject to Environmental Assessment). However, although it has been made mandatory to include components such as a sustainability plan, zero waste plan, greenhouse gas reduction plan, and impacts on climate change in the EIA report,

Figure 3.1.  Numbers and Categories of EIA Decisions between 1993 and 2021 Source: Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, https:​//​webdosya​.csb​.gov​.tr​/ db​/ced​/menu​/ced​_karar​_1993​-2021​_20220217110839​.pdf

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Figure 3.2.  Sectoral Breakdown of EIA-Positive Decisions and EIA Not-Required Decisions between 1993 and 2021 Source: Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, https:​//​webdosya​.csb​.gov​.tr​/ db​/ced​/menu​/ced​_karar​_1993​-2021​_20220217110839​.pdf

the ministry’s own evaluations, especially in the petroleum and mining sectors, show that these will mostly remain a formality. POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF RESISTANCE Indeed, since the 2010s, we can see a continuous multiplication of mobilizations across Turkey in several forms of resistance and versus projects in several fields: infrastructure: the construction of roads, bridges, and ports; energy: hydroelectric, thermal, geothermal, and nuclear power plants; mines: metallic and quarry; and pollution: rivers, air, and soil. These projects come from public–private partnerships or belong to companies obtaining concessions to use the chosen areas, facilitated by an adaptive legal context. A quick search of Twitter, as the use of social media is an effective tool, shows that almost ninety environmental resistance networks have opened accounts since 2019. They identify themselves as “platform,” “movement,” “solidarity,” “fraternity,” “defense,” “collective,” “association,” and “initiative.” Mobilizations have undoubtedly changed since Bergama regarding the actors involved, the discourses, and the strategies and operating methods. As a result of new economic policies, the destruction is more widespread and profound, and so is the reaction. The actors of the conflicts, local communities, activists, and assisting NGOs learn from past and other experiences, and this learning process transforms the language, the choice of strategies, and actions. A large part of the mobilizations has specific targets such as fighting against a gold mine (Kazdağları, Kemaliye, Tokat, Kapadokya, Murgul, Murat Dağı, Erbaa, Dedeyazı, etc.) or a thermal power plant (Milas, İkizköy, etc.). Others are forming “defense of life” lines with no specific target to support local struggles across the country, thus creating a translocal network of



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environmentalism or local defense platforms against several economic activities altering the environment. In this section, we use an analysis framework that has been followed in different studies, such as Joan Martinez-Alier’s classifications in Environmentalism of the Poor and John Mittelman’s interpretations on the sources, agents, and strategies of resistance in Contesting Global Order. First, we distinguish ecological conflict types using EJAtlas criteria, relating classification associations with other comparative research. Second, we expose the involved resistance actors’ typologies and the interactions among them. Third, we explain their strategies and mobilization tools. Classification of Conflicts According to EJAtlas assessment tools, conflicts are classified in levels. Sixty cases reported from Turkey fall into all the type 1 levels (categories): biodiversity conservation conflicts; biomass and land conflicts; fossil fuels, climate justice, and energy; industrial and utilities conflicts; infrastructure and built environment; mineral ores and building materials extraction conflicts; nuclear energy; tourism/recreation; and waste management and water management. Type 2 provides more detailed descriptions of the conflict sources. Staying within the first framework, we show that the centers of resistance are increasing with current examples. Biodiversity conservation conflicts: In addition to six cases presented in EJAtlas, such as the defense of the Roma community garden in Istanbul and reactions against the interventions to Abant Lake Nature Park in Bolu, we can mention the Salda Lake conflict, deriving from the interventions to the lake ecosystem by the transformation of some parts of this special environmental protection area (declared by Presidential Decree 824 in 201961) into a “national garden.” Therefore, at type 2, this is a case of the “establishment of reserves/national parks.” The construction of the garden has been entrusted to a company as a result of the open tender procedure and the management to another one.62 An association (Salda Gölü Koruma Derneği) claims that the Salda Lake is part of the World Heritage and asks for the conservation of this ecosystem. Biomass and land conflicts: About six cases have been reported to EJAtlas, ranging from the destruction of sweetgum forests in the province of Muğla (Köyceğiz) for agricultural activities (citrus plantation), causing land acquisition conflicts, to the extinction of endemic fish species in Lake Van because of massive irrigation and overfishing.63 Resistance against the production and import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) also falls into this category. A platform of several NGOs, “No to GMOs,” was founded in 2004

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and has followed closely since the regulations, GMO crop permits, and functioning of the Biosafety Council.64 Fossil fuels, climate justice, and energy: Conflicts over thermal and geothermal power plants fall into this category. Six cases are documented so far, and four are still ongoing: the Aliağa (İzdemir 2) Thermal Power Plant (İzmir), the Dosab Lignite Fired Power Plant (Bursa), the Karaburun Wind Energy Project (İzmir) (which caused the “unlawful removal of olive trees”), and the Mersinli Wind Energy Plant (İzmir). Many thermal power plants are also the subject of ecological conflict. For example, air pollution, toxic wastes caused by the Yeniköy and Kemerköy Thermal Power Plants (Milas, Muğla), and the cutoff project of pines at Akbelen Forest to extend the coal extraction area continue to be the target of the villagers of this region and nature protection platforms. We should add other conflicts in the Aegean region emanating from widespread geothermal power plants, sixty-three in operation, two in the construction phase, and thirteen with pre-licenses, all operated by private companies.65 They have negative impacts on the local climatic conditions because of the emission of toxic vapor and cause damages on agricultural activities (especially fig production in terms of quality and quantity) and health concerns. Resistance of the rural population (with the leading role of women from impacted villages nearby) in alliance with the urban environmental platform Aydın Çevre ve Kültür Platformu (Aydın Environment and Culture Platform) against the Efeler Geothermal Plant is a significant example. In Thrace, the FSRU pier, the liquefied gas conversion unit, and the pipeline that will pass through the agricultural lands and forest areas in the region to transport natural gas in the Gulf of Saros are one of the reasons for the current struggles. Industrial and utilities conflicts: Four cases are presented, two in the Aegean region (Aliağa and the Gaziemir Lead Factory and nuclear waste storage, both in the province of İzmir) and two in the heavily industrialized Marmara region (Dilovası industrial air pollution and cancer-related deaths and Yalova Vopak Chemical Storage). The Aliağa conflicts are multidimensional, from shipbreaking yard issues to toxic waste treatment, and have external causes as that kind of “material” is also imported by private companies. A recent example is the case of Brazilian aircraft carrier NAe Sao Paolo, sold to a Turkish company (in an international tender procedure) to be broken at Aliağa. Public concerns about the asbestos and possible nuclear traces led to a successful campaign against this operation, organized by Aliağa Çevre Platformu, in cooperation with Foça Çevre ve Kültür Platformu, Ege Çevre ve Kültür Platformu, FOÇA FORUM, and Polen Ekoloji Kolektifi. We can also include actions against organized industrial zones (OIZs) that may have devastating environmental and socioeconomic impacts in this category. The most recent case is Çambükü villagers’ resistance against the OIZ project



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to be built in the pastures according to the decision of Amasya province governorship in 2021, which included the status change of pastures and the environmental plan and expropriations.66 Infrastructure and built environment: Five cases are reported, concentrated around Istanbul, with the Gezi Park protestations in 2013, politically creating a rupture on a national scale. Conflicts about the Third Istanbul Airport and the Black Sea Coastal Highway are also among them. In fact, other projects with adverse environmental and socioeconomic impact on the forests of the Northern Thrace region, especially the Kanal İstanbul Project, gave rise to a long-term struggle. Both regional and national life advocacy groups, especially the Northern Forests Defense, are developing various discourses and methods against this project. Considering that the project will be carried out by means of excavation, blasting, and soil removal, its impact on the environment is only partially predictable. How accurately these effects were evaluated in the EIA report and whether any mistakes were made prompted NGOs to act. For example, the TMOBB Chamber of Mining Engineers prepared a report and announced that the calculations were wrong.67 A group including different NGOs, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and bar associations—Ya Kanal, ya İstanbul Koordinasyonu (either the Canal or Istanbul Coordination)—filed an action for annulment of the EIA positive decision in 2020. However, tender procedures and expropriations are still ongoing. Mineral ores and building materials extraction conflicts: Mining conflicts according to Martinez-Alier, as the imminent enemy of the olive tree, have become the vastest field of environmental conflicts in Turkey. Among twelve cases reported to EJAtlas, five are related to gold mines (Bergama, Efemçukuru [İzmir], İda Mount [Kazdağları], Kışladağ, and Cerrattepe [Artvin]), four about stone quarries (the Istıranca Mountains [Strandzhas] mines and quarries, Özbek Village, the quartzite mine in Güngörmez and Bahçeköy [Tekirdağ], and the Finike marble quarries), and three concerning other metallic mines (the Eti silver cyanide mine [Kütahya], the Çaldağ nickel mine, and the Yozgat Uranium Mine Project). In fact, new mining conflicts have occurred frequently since 2019, the date of another amendment to the mining law: the Çöpler gold mine (İliç/Erzincan), gold and iron ore extraction in Dedeyazı (Malatya), gold cyanidation in Erbaa (Tokat), marble quarries and olivine mines at Mount Sandras (Muğla), the Kızderbent stone quarry (Kocaeli), the Murat Mountain gold mine capacity increase project (Kütahya/ Uşak), and the Ünye mine exploration project (Ordu) threatening hazelnut gardening and water sources are some of the recent operations that triggered resistance. Nuclear (a toxic struggle): Conflicts include resistance against the Sinop and Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant constructions and a contamination case caused by a closed uranium mine at Köprübaşı (Manisa). Both nuclear power

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plants are international investment projects; in Sinop, Japan, France, and Turkey formed a consortium, while in Akkuyu, Russia and Turkey reached an agreement, and they generated reactions concerning their negative impacts on coastal ecosystems for hampering possible investments in clean energy and causing energy dependence on foreign countries. Two local anti-nuclear platforms have been created, and EIA reports have been challenged and brought to justice in 2017 and 2020 with the participation of several NGOs without obtaining substantial results on the implementation of the projects.68 Tourism: In addition to the resistance of the local population to the lease of the Çıralı coast (Antalya) as a daily recreational facility despite being Caretta caretta turtles’ nesting ground in 2011, several similar areas were rented for such activities. The Muğla or Edirne coasts,69 for which yearly lease contracts are made with private companies, can be given as examples, although they are protected areas. Waste management: In addition to the case mentioned in EJAtlas, we may consider several mobilizations against landfills in this category, for instance Caferbey villagers in Manisa, contesting the municipality’s decision to build a solid waste facility that might affect pastures and water resources,70 or Erdoğan villagers in Bursa accompanied by a local environmental protection association against the Bursa Municipality’s waste disposal project.71 Water management: Sixteen cases—including Southern Eastern Anatolia Project–related dams, HEPPs in the Black Sea,72 and drying out lakes because of the water derivation projects of the General Directorate of State Water Works, as in the case of Lake Marmara (Gölmarmara) in Manisa and the pollution of the Ergene River and Basin—are mentioned. Intensive irrigation before 2011 and the construction of a dam to provide water to the province of İzmir, the metropole nearby, mainly caused the dry-out of Lake Marmara, registered as a “wetland of national importance.” It dramatically changed agricultural activities (olive and grape production) and the land tenure and provoked violent land occupation conflicts in the region as the dried lake bottom would be used as agricultural land under the management of the General Directorate of Agricultural Enterprises.73 Other water derivation operations to solve the water deficit of metropoles are also creating ecological distribution problems. For instance, the water transfer from rivers in Thrace and the Istıranca Mountains to Istanbul is a tension issue.74 The pollution of the Ergene River is a problem that has gained different dimensions in the last thirty years. Being “defense of the river,” “toxic struggle,” and “land degradation” conflicts, according to Joan Martinez-Alier,75 different forms of mobilization have been developed; unfortunately, they could not stop the adverse effects. According to scientific assessment reports and as reported by interviewed activists, unplanned and intensive industrialization, mining, and severe deficiencies in the regional municipalities’ sewage



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and solid waste (non)management caused heavy metal and other toxic waste concentrations. The water is qualified as “polluted at the fourth level” according to the General Directorate of State Water Works,76 which means water that cannot be used for any purpose and in which no living thing can survive. The pollution of the river and its basin produced adverse effects on production in areas, although classified as first-class and second-class agricultural land (fertile and easily cultivated according to the classification of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry77), destructive impact on the ecosystem, and an increase in cancer cases and related deaths. The last stage of the problem emerged when the polluted river waters were discharged into the Marmara Sea by the deep discharge system in November 2020. It has also caused a widespread mucilage/sea snot problem in the sea, which industrial and urban wastes have severely polluted. The effects of mucilage have also been observed in the Aegean Sea (northern parts), which is connected to the Marmara Sea and threatens the Black Sea.78 Actors and Cooperation Areas Here, we create a description in terms of the participating actors of the resistance, not the actors of the conflict. For this reason, we do not examine the reactions of companies and/or state institutions and political power, which will be mentioned further in this section. As urban conflicts do not fall in the scope of this chapter, the actor characteristics of such mobilizations are not taken into account. According to Mittelman, grassroots organizations such as peasants’ and community-based organizations as well as unorganized masses concerned by environmental degradation play a central role in the fourth and fifth layers of civil society’s environmental resistance. In Turkey, from Bergama protestations in the early 1990s—defined a “community-based ecological resistance” by Aykut Çoban, with peasants at the front first, assisted by lawyers and NGO representatives afterward—to the resistance of Çambükü habitants against the OIZ project, local populations have always been the immediate responders. Their livelihood, lifestyle, and cultural attributions to the nature they know are threatened by external actors to the region, state, and corporations. The proportion of men and women participants is an important indication of gender-based inequality risks. In several studies of resistance in the Global South, the more pronounced participation of women has been observed, which is considered by Martinez-Alier as an ecofeminist dimension of the struggles. While essentialist ecofeminism puts a value on the “intrinsic relationship between women and Nature,” the nonessentialist perspective considers that women act because they understand the importance of social solidarity and a healthy environment as they are in a day-to-day activity for

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livelihood.79 They are the first to experience the negative impacts of dispossession and pressure on the environment. Within the resistance movements in Turkey, the second perception prevails. For instance, at Bergama, although being a rural region where one would presume that social relations between men and women are restricted, they acted together; moreover, women led the protestations. Aykut Çoban enumerates a series of constructed social roles incumbent on women in the “community-environment symbiosis,”80 such as their knowledge of agricultural practices both for assuring livelihood and for feeding their families, including childcare responsibilities. Since then, in almost every ecological conflict, women were in the majority and shaped the strategies followed by others. A salient example of women’s forefront position is the recent İkizköy resistance against the extension of lignite mines that feed thermal power plants and dispossession caused by the expropriation of some parts of their villages. As women constitute the primary workforce in agricultural production, they stand to defend their lands, olive trees, and the surrounding Akbelen forest. A participant explains the role of women as follows: “These trees have been here since I was born, and I owe them a debt of loyalty. Thanks to them, I breathed, went, and set a swing on their branch, lay in their shadow, and ran freely among them. We women are cultivating, we are producing, we are intertwined with nature and soil, and we dominate everything. That’s why we can’t give it—we can’t give it up. Like a tree that takes root in the ground, dries up, and dies without it, so does the woman. I am like that. I can’t live without these places.”81 In the second layer of resistance, local NGOs assist grassroots organizations and mobilizations in acquiring and diffusing information about the degradation and the consequences on local populations. Furthermore, they guide them through the methods of organizing resistance, the strategies to be followed, and the initiation and follow-up of judicial processes. Two NGO categories are active in ecological conflicts in Turkey: public interest professional organizations (bars, chambers of engineers and architects, the Turkish Medical Association) and environmental foundations/associations. We can cite the works of TEMA Foundation in terms of creating basic environmental awareness, identifying problems, compiling information, and suggesting solutions. For instance, Interviewee 2 affirms that the local branch of the foundation at Uzunköprü, Edirne, organized trainings in the early 1990s for institutors and school children and constituted the starting point of environmental awareness that led to many mobilizations against ecological problems in the Thrace region. The reports we used in the second part of this chapter, examining the extent to which mining exploration and operation activities are carried out in agricultural lands as well as natural and archeologic sites, are examples of due diligence, data collection, information



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sharing, and solution proposals. According to Interviewee 3, the leading position of TEMA has changed in time; the foundation was no longer the training and guidance center for environmental advocacy initiatives: local platforms have become decisive in defining the principles and essentials of the struggle. Engineer and architect chambers in various regions provide scientific insight into the issues with the reports they prepare. For example, in the case of Thrace, the local branch of the Chamber of Mechanical Engineers organized symposiums (Industrialization and Environment in Thrace) between 1996 and 2005, described as “shepherd fires” by Interviewee 3, an allusion to spreading light in the dark and awakening. Their assessment of different environmental pressure factors—such as unplanned industrialization, population growth, and migration—and their impact on the destruction of agricultural lands and environmental degradation raised popular awareness and urged people to act.82 On the other hand, the Turkish Medical Association, the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, and the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, together with local resistance platforms (the Trakya and Ergene platforms) and the researchers of the MAREM Project (Project for Monitoring the Changing Oceanographic Conditions of the Marmara Sea), published a common report in 2015 on the agricultural, health, and environmental impacts of Marmara Deep Sea Discharge based on the right to a healthy environment (Article 56 of the 1982 Constitution).83 Therefore, these structures provide institutional support for organizing scientific meetings and disseminating research and communications. Concerning the training of protesters for effective resistance, we can mention the works of the TEMA Foundation about local environmental “defense” “towards” (language nuance) mining activities. They published a guide detailing how to access information on mining licenses, information about ministries and other state agencies involved in the issuing of licenses and EIA reports, specific defense initiatives according to the type of activity (exploration or extraction), the legislation on mining, protected areas, EIA procedures, how to contact NGOs, how to exercise the right to information, petition examples, and so on.84 Similarly, the Collective for Ecology (Ekoloji Kolektifi) prepared a guide on how to follow EIA procedures.85 Researchers from local universities (in the region of the conflict) or specialists in environmental issues from other establishments join protesters in raising awareness and constructing a defense language. Interviewee 2, a participant in almost every struggle in the Thrace region, explains this connection as follows: “We didn’t know at first, and we organized training sessions with academics from all fields of life—ecology, metallurgy, urban planning, energy engineering, agricultural engineering—to learn about the environment and environmental issues.” We also understand from this statement that the

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extracurricular activities in the school, and the teachers involved in these, channeled ecological awareness. As an example of the efforts devoted by academics, we can cite the work of Osman İnci, professor of medicine and former rector at the University of Thrace in Edirne, who researched on a regular basis the ecological and health impacts of heavy metal pollution in the Ergene River Basin. He is one of the strong supporters of the Ergene Basin Environmental Plan, prepared under the agreement between the University of Thrace and the Ministry of the Environment, with the participation of the Chamber of Engineers and Architects, also supported by the region’s environmental protection platforms. According to Interviewee 1, as this was the first participative and sustainability-oriented regional plan, the Turkish Grand National Assembly valued this initiative and recommended it be taken as an example in the Çukurova basin (Mediterranean Region); however, the plan was canceled by the Ministry of Environment and entirely revised in 2009 for extending industrial activities, mining, and agricultural production. According to reports prepared by the academics of the Medicine Faculty of Thrace University, master’s and doctoral theses conducted at the environing universities86 directly or indirectly provided knowledge to resistant organizations to evaluate the actual span of the problems and express their demands and reactions in an informed way. Lawyers, lawyers’ associations, and bars constitute a considerable supporting force for environmental resistance movements. By bringing lawsuits against EIA–not-required and EIA-positive decisions and expropriations or by providing information on decision-making procedures, legislation, and landmark judgments, they act in favor of vulnerable populations facing dispossession. The Environmental Law Network (Çevre Hukuku Ağı) is a pertinent example of a legal information provider mainly by gathering regulations, laws, and decisions that may impact the environment and livelihoods. This initiative also aims to establish “pro bono” legal assistance mechanisms and offer insight into the right to a healthy environment and the penal dimensions of ecocide at the international and national levels.87 The Union of Turkish Bar Associations’ Environmental and Urban Law Commission’s purpose is to offer training to lawyers who want to specialize in these fields, apply to national and international administrative and judicial authorities in cases that violate the right to the environment and on deteriorating cultural and natural assets, and follow judicial processes. The most important function of the commission is financing attorneys’ dispenses from the budget of the union for litigation costs. However, as reminded by Interviewees 2 and 3, the union decided in 2018 to dismiss the voluntary members of the commission and to create a new structure. Interviewee 3, a preeminent local attorney in environmental lawsuits, was among them. This



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created an additional burden for volunteers of local environmental platforms, which might endanger local communities’ ability to initiate legal proceedings quickly and effectively. A third organization to be mentioned is Environment and Ecology Movement Attorneys (Çevre ve Ekoloji Hareketi Avukatları), a network of activist lawyers sharing their experiences and appointing common strategies in followed cases. Strategies and Forms of Mobilizations The structural features of resistance movements also determine their strategies and areas of action. Not only do the citizens closest to a mining or infrastructure project react, but also, local environmental organizations, professional organizations, lawyers and environmental platforms from other regions, life defense movements, and national and transnational NGOs participate in the process. This determines what kind of discourse and what kind of tools to put forward and how effective a struggle can be. Although our aim is not to make a discourse analysis, it will be necessary to highlight some remarkable features regarding the transformation of movements in Turkey. Taking the Bergama protestations as a starting point, we observe first that what the mobilized communities find valuable, their understanding of the human–nature relationship, and the scope of their awareness have evolved. For example, in the testimonies compiled by Etienne Copeaux in Bergama, there is an understanding that prioritizes the livelihood needs and health concerns of the people in the region. Of course, when livelihood is provided with activities that do not exceed the ecosystem’s carrying capacity, it is covered within the environment–community symbiosis described by Aykut Çoban. This is an anthropocentric but respectful view of nature because of what it offers. Naturally, as a result of the experiences learned from previous mobilizations and the interactions with professional chambers and NGOs—which define the problems with their technical, environmental, legal, and cultural aspects and produce and share information—discourses that resemble more bio-egalitarianism in terms of the human–nature relationship emerged. The scope of the attention has been enlarged to include other living beings depending on the same ecosystem. A phrase from peasant women defending the Akbelen forest against the mining company is illustrative: “A pine, a being. We are with that being.”88 Populations do not describe themselves as environmentalists but “life defenders.” The environmentalism in the understanding of protesters insinuates the greenwashing of states and corporations,89 their palliative actions for fighting pollution and resource depletion, as in Arne Naess’s definition of shallow ecology, compliant with their business-as-usual

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scenario. According to Interviewee 2, becoming life defenders is a salient feature of their mobilizations as they learned to value ecosystems over time. The second common ground (but where the definitions may differ) is about what/who is being fought. Different types of actors in different movements express their non-partisan approaches. Although local representatives of various parties are sometimes present to support them in their actions, this is not an institutional support they rely on. Interviewee 3 explains their position: “Our problem is not with one party. We struggled with different political powers without any bias at the regional and national levels. We are against the capital that exploits and instrumentalizes nature.” Therefore, the fact that the activity that causes environmental destruction is carried out by a company and/or state institutions can be a point where the language of struggle differs. The pattern, defined as the environment and economic growth nexus or state–corporation symbiosis, requires defenders to act strategically when expressing what they are against because it can lead to consequences that make it easier for them to be stigmatized or even criminalized. For instance, in Bergama, since a multinational company was opposed, a nationalist perception and an anti-neoliberal90 and anti-neocolonial stance were displayed with the discourse of homeland defense and fight against the foreigner. The slogan “Turkey is not Africa” is revealing.91 It was out of the question to be against the state or to act with a political view. Expressing reactions and taking action can be more complicated when domestic companies having aligned interests with political power are targeted. The stance against neoliberalism as the main cause of problems and the change in ecological awareness have transformed and expanded the geographies with which the movements were in contact. Cada asserts that perceiving neoliberalism’s common and adverse effects, mobilizations start cooperating with similar initiatives; thus, they go out from being NIMBY to NIABY movements.92 Expressions describing the harmony between humans and nature are also used in more recent resistances. This leads them to recognize similar problems in different localities and to take joint, simultaneous actions. Thus, a translocal environmental resistance is taking shape. Campaigns and Demonstrations Local demonstrations, marches, and signature campaigns facilitated and accelerated by websites such as Change.org are the methods used by all environmental resistance movements. Other actors we have classified, from their regions or extra-local, also participate in these actions, initiated by local communities to make their voices heard and become visible. The dimensions and preferability of such actions may also vary regarding the region, the subject of conflict, and the depth of the injustice it creates. The results of their course



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of action and their level of success determine whether they will be used in subsequent struggles. For example, Interviewee 2 stated that they organized signature campaigns before and that they managed to collect one million signatures when there was no internet in the early 1990s but that this could only be a tool to publicize the issue. It was not enough to change the situation. Recently, vigils have been organized to defend the areas under threat of destruction. A global interaction creates similarities93 in all these action types. Again, starting from Bergama to actions against the Black Sea HEPP projects and mining and thermal power plant investments in the Aegean, the primarily affected communities organized demonstrations to protect their living spaces and forms. In these, translocal movement solidarity increases, and different components come together physically or simultaneously with joint actions at the moments they consider as breaking points. Such multilayered gatherings can also occur in vigil actions. To illustrate, in the summer of 2019, citizens from all over Turkey to Mount Ida, in northwestern Turkey, started to stand guard against the project of Alamos Gold, a Canadian-based gold mining company, in Kirazlı, in a mountainous forest area. According to the positive EIA report by the decision of the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization,94 some forty-five thousand trees were going to be cut. However, the reality was different. The company had razed a much larger area and cut many more trees, 195,000 trees, according to the TEMA Foundation (13,500, according to the General Directorate of Forests).95 The vigil call came from the municipality of Çanakkale and networks of environmental activists. Farmers, city dwellers, older people, young people, anti-capitalists, journalists, well-known personalities, and politicians have united to defend the region’s only drainage basin against metal mining activities.96 The vigil lasted more than a year, and in 2022, the Turkish branch of the company in Çanakkale was closed. At this stage, stigmatization, criminalization, and even violence occur. Examples of penalized civil disobedience include the following: the prison sentences given after ten years to the villagers who stopped drilling rigs while fighting against the construction of a thermal power plant in Gerze (Black Sea region) in 2009 and to whom the security forces intervened harshly; the punishment of the villagers for not complying with the social distance rules when they reacted against the air pollution caused by the geothermal power plant in the Efeler district of Aydın, all while the company drilled a new well in the pandemic confinement period; the detention of a peasant woman who opposed the establishment of an OIZ in Amasya Çambükü by throwing stones at the security forces; and the prosecution of two peasant women defending Akbelen Forest for resisting the security forces. However, the most extreme case is the killing of the environmentalist couple in 2017, known for their

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struggle to protect the habitat of wild animals and cedar and red pine trees against Finike marble quarries.97 Within the political power–market connection framework, the view that environmental movements are supported from outside to prevent Turkey’s development, use its own natural resources, and ensure that it remains dependent on foreign sources is widely displayed.98 In particular, actions against the effects of mining activities are considered from this perspective by targeting political parties, labor unions, and professional organizations, not local communities.99 Judicial Activism The legal procedures that citizens can use are requesting information, using the objection right, and applying to the judiciary against administrative actions that violate environmental rights and disrupt socioeconomic conditions. “Judicial activism” aims to force the state to be an arbitrator that respects the rights of the citizens and does not put the burden of ecological, economic, and social costs on them in the state–company symbiosis. It aims to direct the executive power to comply with the law through citizen control. Citizens in environmental resistance formations can exercise their rights in a few stages around the EIA process before the process begins when a public or private project is decided, when decisions about the requirement or non-requirement of an assessment are made by the Ministry of Environment, and after an activity starts. First, they can file a petition for information about a project that needs to apply for an EIA if there is no explanation on the website of the Ministry of Environment. In the second stage, they can submit a petition to obtain information about the decision of the Ministry of Environment, whether or not an EIA is required. If the result is positive after the EIA is required, they can use their right to information and objection. For example, in cases where there is no public participation meeting, although it is an obligation according to the regulation, they can still apply for information. In fact, public consultations are where ecological conflicts come into view. In recent examples, these meetings have been held by the employees of the relevant company conveying the information about the project and its benefits without the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Environment. Information that should be included in the EIA report is not transmitted. After completing the information process, they can file an annulment action against the EIA–not-required or EIA-positive decision. However, as we can see, exercising these rights requires going through complex paths of the EIA process; how the regulation is implemented becomes untraceable with constant changes, which makes it difficult for the citizens to move forward alone without getting legal and technical support.



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In this sense, creating platforms such as the Thrace Platform, together with the stakeholders who will provide these supports, has a serious impact. According to Interviewee 3, the lawyers of the platform try to make the citizens object on their own, seek justice when faced with different violations in the region, and try not to cast a shadow. For example, a lawsuit started when a single citizen filed an objection petition against the Ministry of Industry and Technology’s decision to create a hybrid OIZ in 2017 by changing the agricultural land status of an area without asking the villagers who would be affected by the results. Other villagers also filed petitions and covered the costs of the lawsuit. As a result, they stopped the project and changed the village’s administrators, who gave consent for it in the next local elections. Thus, to what extent judicial activism changes the result depends on the conflicts. The judiciary decides to stop the wrong decisions and actions of the administration, as requested by the citizens. When asked about their degree of success after thirty years of resistance, Interviewee 2 responds, “We saved 80 percent.” However, there are many cases where the activities in question continue, although the judicial process still needs to be completed, or the court decides the stay of execution. These cases also involve clearing up the uncertainty by making the different layers of the state–company partnership visible, revealing information that is kept out of the public view, and determining other struggle strategies accordingly. CONCLUDING REMARKS In a process where neoliberal developmental policies continue to be strengthened by deregulations, new environmental resistance movements are likely to emerge. However, in which field they can express themselves and how their right to information and objection can be exercised are becoming increasingly unclear or somewhat limited. “Political opportunity structures” depend on the characteristics of the political system in place, which can facilitate or limit mobilizations as well as their strategies, modes of action, and degree of success. Among the determining factors, van Deer underlines “the relative independence of legislature from the executive” and “intermediation between interest groups and the executive branch.”100 In the case of Turkey, the centralization of decision-making procedures and the isolation of local communities by successive regulations preventing NGOs from assisting them considerably reduce these structures. We have seen that from the governance of protected areas to the regulations on mining activities and the EIA, decisions are taken by the ministries concerned, by the Council of Ministers, and recently by presidential decrees. Instead, intermediation occurs between the

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state and market players; civil society and the populations concerned are, in fact, absent when rent-oriented projects are validated. The example of Turkey shows us that some features differ from and resemble the Global South in the EDCs. The main difference is here: there is no clear correlation between global capitalism and dispossession based on land and resource exploitation in Turkey, creating/deepening inequalities. Instead, there is an internal accumulation policy and the allocation of natural capital to it. Therefore, a limited part of ecological conflicts can be explained in terms of center–periphery dynamics. Second, conflicts can positively affect sustainability; for example, as in the work of Scheidel et al., these conflicts can have effects such as bringing an alternative understanding of sustainability and redefining social metabolism.101 In Turkey, on the other hand, they do not have such a significant impact. What they indicate does not lead decision-makers to determine and implement just sustainability policies; rather, they see these initiatives as obstacles and manipulations of global power games. The discourse of green growth and participatory decision-making dominates the interaction field. What is needed is the development of at least an understanding of livelihood ecology from the reactions, discourses, and demands of local populations and NGOs and a redefining of the relations between society and economy in a way that remediates the rift. However, the point reached for now consists of using citizenship rights to make the state obey the law—with an olive branch. NOTES 1. “Maden Yönetmeliğinde Değişiklik Yapılmasına Dair Yönetmelik,” March 1, 2022, https:​//​www​.resmigazete​.gov​.tr​/eskiler​/2022​/03​/20220301​-11​.htm 2. “Zeytinlikleri Tehdit Eden Kanun Teklifine Karşı Tek Ses: Zeytinime Dokunma,” Yeşil Gazete, December 12, 2022, https:​//​yesilgazete​.org​/zeytinlikleri​-tehdit​-eden​ -kanun​-teklifine​-karsi​-tek​-ses​-zeytinime​-dokunma​/ 3. The culmination was the Gezi trials in 2014, reopened in 2019, where philanthropist Osman Kavala was sentenced to aggravated life in prison and civil society members to lengthy prison sentences. 4. “Deep ecology” is defined, as opposed to anthropocentric shallow ecology by Arne Naess, as the acceptation of “biospherical egalitarianism” with an ecocentric and holistic approach and the self-realization in nature to get rid of the master–slave relation that caused “the alienation of man from himself.” Arne Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary,” in Selected Works of Arne Naess, Vol. X, edited by A. Drengson and H. Glasser (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer), 7–12.



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5. Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, second edition (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 170–79. 6. Thomas Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity and Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 14–15, 102. 7. Joan Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002), 9. 8. Mainly the seminal work of A. Agarwal and S. Narain (Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism [New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1991]) is cited by Martinez-Alier as the origin of a perspective from the developing countries’ point of view: Joan Martinez-Alier “Ecological Distribution Conflicts and the Vocabulary of Environmental Justice,” in Ecology, Economy and Society: Essays in Honor of Kanchan Chopra, edited by V. Dayal, A. Duraiappah, and N. Nawn (Singapore: Springer, 2018), 188. 9. Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 10. 10. Ibid., viii. 11. For a first insight on environmental justice, see Andrew Dobson, Justice and the Environment: Concepts of the Environmental Sustainability and Theories of Distributive Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 12. Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 73. 13. Martinez-Alier, “Ecological Distribution Conflicts and the Vocabulary of Environmental Justice,” 187. 14. John Bellamy-Foster, “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 2 (September 1999): 379–80. 15. “From the system,” as defined by Beyza Üstün, Doğayı, Emeği, Yaşamı Korumak: Ekoloji Politik Yazılar (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2021), 26. 16. Joan Martinez-Alier, “Social Metabolism, Ecological Distribution Conflicts, and Languages of Valuation,” Capitalism Nature Socialism 20, no. 1 (2009): 62, 58–87. 17. Isabelle Anguelovski and Joan Martinez-Alier, “The ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ Revisited: Territory and Place in Disconnected Glocal Struggles,” Ecological Economics 102 (2014): 172. 18. Jason W. Moore, “Sugar and the Expansion of the Early Modern World-Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 23, no. 3 (2000): 411. 19. Arnim Scheidel, Leah Temper, Federico Demaria, and Joan Martinez-Alier, “Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability: An Overview and Conceptual Framework,” Sustainability Science 13 (2018): 595. 20. James H. Mittelman, “Globalisation and Environmental Resistance Politics,” Third World Quarterly 19, no. 5 (1998): 852, 866. 21. Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of Commons,” Science 162, no. 3859 (December 13, 1968): 1243–48. 22. For the historical background of these studies, see Fikret Berkes, Toward a New Social Contract: Community-based Resource Management and Small-scale Fisheries (TBTI Global Book Series, 2021), 3–14.

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23. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 12–15. 24. David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 148. 25. John S. Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, second edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 210. 26. Mittelman, “Globalisation and Environmental Resistance Politics”; James H. Mittelman, Contesting Global Order: Development, Global Governance, and Globalization, 351–97; Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor; Joan Martinez-Alier, “Languages of Valuation,” Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 48 (Nov. 29–Dec. 5, 2008): 28–32; Marta Conde, “Resistance to Mining: A Review,” Ecological Economics 132 (February 2017): 80–90; Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee, Rajiv Maher, and Romy Krämer, “Resistance Is Fertile: Toward a Political Ecology of Translocal Resistance,” Organization (2021): 1–24. 27. Environmental Justice: A Research Project to Study and to Contribute to the Global Environmental Justice, http:​//​www​.envjustice​.org​/project​/. 28. For an extensive explication of EJAtlas methodology and scope, see Joan Martinez-Alier, “Mapping Ecological Distribution Conflicts: The EJAtlas,” The Extractive Industries and Society 8 (2021): 100883; Leah Temper, Federico Demaria, Arnim Scheidel, Daniela Del Bene, and Joan Martinez‐Alier, “The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability,” Sustainability Science, no. 13 (2018): 573–84. 29. Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 73, 256. 30. P.J. Taylor and C. Flint (2000), Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation State and Locality, 190, cited by Aykut Çoban, “Community-based Ecological Resistance: The Bergama Movement in Turkey,” Environmental Politics 13, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 446. 31. Begüm Özkaynak, Cem İskender Aydın, Pınar Ertör-Akyazı, and Irmak Ertör, “The Gezi Park Resistance from an Environmental Justice and Social Metabolism Perspective,” Capitalism Nature Socialism 26, no. 1 (2015): 110, 99–114. 32. According to data retrieved from https:​//​stats​.wto​.org​/. 33. Murat Arsel, “Reflexive Developmentalism? Toward an Environmental Critique of Modernization,” in Environmentalism in Turkey: Between Democracy and Development? edited by Fikret Adaman and Murat Arsel (New York: Routledge, 2016), 70 (ePub version). 34. Fuat Keyman and Şebnem Gümüşçü, Democracy, Identity and Foreign Policy in Turkey (Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 165. 35. Joan Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 271. 36. Ali Burak Güven, “Towards a New Political Economy of Turkish Capitalism: Three Worlds,” Turkish Studies (2022): 2. 37. Cemal Burak Tansel, “Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey: Beyond the Narratives of Progress,” South European Society and Politics 23, no. 2 (2018): 199. 38. İmren Borsuk, Pınar Dinç, Sinem Kavak, and Pınar Sayan, “Consolidating and Contesting Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Turkey: Towards a Framework,” in



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Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Resistance in Turkey, edited by İmren Borsuk, Pınar Dinç, Sinem Kavak, and Pınar (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 19. 39. Güven, “Towards a New Political Economy of Turkish Capitalism: Three Worlds,” 5. 40. Fırat Kimya, “Political Economy of Corruption in Turkey: Declining Petty Corruption, Rise of Cronyism?” Turkish Studies 20, no. 3 (2019): 353. 41. Güven, “Towards a New Political Economy of Turkish Capitalism: Three Worlds,” 7. 42. Mustafa Kutlay and Hüseyin Emrah Karaoğuz, “Neo-developmentalist Turn in the Global Political Economy? The Turkish Case,” Turkish Studies 19, no. 2 (2018): 292. 43. Kutlay, cited by Güven, 8. 44. According to the World Bank Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) data, among the top ten world companies investing in PPI projects five are Turkish. Independent Türkiye, “Dünya Bankası’nın Raporuna Göre Dünyada Kamudan En Fazla İhale Alan Şirket Limak,” December 21, 2020, https:​//​www​.indyturk​.com​/node​ /288881​/ekonomi​%CC​%87​/d​%C3​%BCnya​-bankas​%C4​%B1​%E2​%80​%99n​%C4​ %B1n​-raporuna​-g​%C3​%B6re​-d​%C3​%BCnyada​-kamudan​-en​-fazla​-ihale​-alan​-​%C5​ %9Firket. 45. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a preventive tool to evaluate the environmental impacts of public and private projects in various sectors such as industry, tourism, energy, transport, mining, and infrastructure before their execution. State authorities specify the criteria with which these projects must comply—considering ecosystems, human populations, public health, and cultural heritage—and require the agents to provide information according to these criteria. In addition, the populations concerned must be informed through public consultations. 46. A. Buğra and O. Savaşkan, 2014. New Capitalism in Turkey: The Relationship between Politics, Religion and Business (2014), cited by Cemal Burak Tansel, “The Shape of ‘Rising Powers’ to Come? The Antinomies of Growth and Neoliberal Development in Turkey,” New Political Economy 25, no. 5 (2020): 802, 791–812. 47. Ministry of Development, Turkey’s Sustainable Development Report: Claiming the Future, Ministry of Development, Ankara (June 2012), 6, http:​ //​ www​ .surdurulebilirkalkinma​.gov​.tr​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2016​/07​/1​.Claiming​_the​_Future​ .pdf. 48. Ministry of Development, Report on Turkey’s Initial Steps towards the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2016), http:​//​www​ .surdurulebilirkalkinma​.gov​.tr​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2016​/07​/2030​_Raporu​.pdf; Sustainable Development Goals, Turkey’s Second Voluntary National Report, “Strong Grounds towards Common Goals” (2019), 92, http:​//​www​.surdurulebilirkalkinma​ .gov​ . tr​ / wp​ - content ​ / uploads ​ / 2020 ​ / 01 ​ / TURKEY​- 2nd ​ - VNR ​ - Report ​ - 2019 ​ - Strong​ -Ground​-towards​-Common​-Goals​_web​.pdf. 49. Mehmet Yoğurtçu, “Kamu Yararı Çerçevesinde Acele Kamulaştırma,” ABMYO Dergisi 42 (2016): 37–39 (35–55), 9. 50. Toprak Koruma ve Arazi Kullanımı Kanunu, https:​//​www​.mevzuat​.gov​.tr​/ MevzuatMetin​/1​.5​.5403​.pdf.

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51. TEMA Vakfı, Kaz Dağları Yöresinde Madencilik, Nisan 2020, https:​//​cdn​-tema​ .mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/kaz​-daglari​-raporu​_1​_1​.pdf; Afyon ve Çevresinde Madencilik, July 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/afyon​-ve​-cevresinde​ -madencilik​_1​.pdf; Artvin ve Çevresinde Madencilik, June 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​ .mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/artvin​-ve​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; Erzincan-Tunceli ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​ /Cms​/erzincan​-ve​-tunceli​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; Eskişehir ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/eskisehir​-ve​ -cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; Kahramanmaraş ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/kahramanmaras​-ve​-cevresinde​ -madencilik​_1​.pdf; Karaman ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​ -tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/karaman​-ve​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; Muğla ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/ Cms​/karaman​-ve​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; Tekirdağ-Kırklareli ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/tekirdag​-ve​ -kirklareli​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; Zonguldak-Bartın ve Çevresinde Madencilik, October 2021, https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/zonguldak​-ve​-bartin​ -cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf; “Ordu’nun %74’ü Madenlere Ruhsatlı,” July 8, 2021, https:​//​www​.tema​.org​.tr​/basin​-odasi​/basin​-bultenleri​/ordunun​-yuzde​-74​-u​-madenlere​ -ruhsatli; Türkiye Maden Ruhsatlarının Tehdidi Altında: 24 İlde 20 Bine Yakın Maden Ruhsatı, April 22, 2022, https:​//​www​.tema​.org​.tr​/basin​-odasi​/basin​-bultenleri​/turkiye​ -maden​-ruhsatlarinin​-tehdidi​-altinda. 52. Nükhet Yılmaz Turgut, “Giriş. Çevreyi Koruyucu Uluslararası Sözleşmelerin Yadsınamaz Önemi,” in Uluslararası Çevre Koruma Sözleşmeleri (Ankara: Türkiye Barolar Birliği, 2014), 19–20. 53. Annex 5 on the sensitive areas, Çevresel Etki Değerlendirmesi Yönetmeliği, July 29, 2022, https:​//​www​.mevzuat​.gov​.tr​/mevzuat​?MevzuatNo​=39647​&MevzuatTur​=7​ &Mevzuat​Tertip​=5. 54. T. C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı, “Türkiye’nin Çevre Politikası. 1. Temel Çevre Sorunları,” https:​//​www​.mfa​.gov​.tr​/i​_​-temel​-cevre​-sorunlari​.tr​.mfa, “taking into account its national interests and socio-economic conditions” in the English version of this page. 55. Türkiye Barolar Birliği, “ÇED Yönetmeliğinin İptali İçin Danıştay’a Dava Açılmıştır,” October 11, 2022, https:​//​www​.barobirlik​.org​.tr​/Haberler​/ced​ -yonetmeliginin​-iptali​-icin​-danistay​-a​-dava​-acilmistir​-83081; TMOBB, “TMOBB Tarafından Çevresel Etki Değerlendirmesi (ÇED) Yönetmeliği’ne Karşı Dava Açıldı,” September 29, 2022, http:​//​www​.tmmob​.org​.tr​/icerik​/tmmob​-tarafindan​-cevresel​-etki​ -degerlendirmesi​-ced​-yonetmeligine​-karsi​-dava​-acildi; Doğa Derneği, “Halkın Kararlara Katılımını Savunmak ÇED Yönetmeliği İptal Davası,” https:​//​www​.dogadernegi​ .org​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2022​/10​/ced​-yonetmeligi​-iptal​-davasi​.pdf. 56. Ekoloji Kolektifi, “Korunan Alanlarda Yeni Yönetmeliğin Getirdikleri!” https:​ //​ekolojikolektifi​.org​/portfolio​/korunan​-alanlarin​-tespit​-tescil​-ve​-onayina​-iliskin​ -usul​-ve​-esaslara​-dair​-yonetmelikte​-yapilan​-degisiklikler​-hakkinda​/; T. C. Çevre, Şehircilik, İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı, “Korunan Alanların Tespitine İlişkin Yönetmelik Değişikliği Resmi Gazetede,” March 5, 2022, https:​//​csb​.gov​.tr​/korunan​



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-alanlarin​-tespitine​-iliskin​-yonetmelik​-degisikligi​-resmi​-gazetede​-bakanlik​-faali​ yetleri​-32059. 57. T. C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı, “Mülga ÇED Yönetmelikleri,” https:​//​ced​.csb​.gov​.tr​/mulga​-ced​-yonetmelikleri​-uygulamasi. 58. Ayla Bilgin, “Analysis of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive and the EIA Decision in Turkey,” Environmental Impact Assessment Review 53 (2015): 40–41 (40–51). 59. T. C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı, “Çevresel Etki Değerlendirme Yönetmeliği,” July 29, 2022, https:​//​www​.resmigazete​.gov​.tr​/eskiler​ /2022​/07​/20220729​-2​.htm. 60. T. C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı, “İlk ÇED Yönetmeliğinin Yayınladığı 1993 Yılından 2021 Yılı Sonuna Kadar Verilen ÇED Kararları,” https:​//​ webdosya​.csb​.gov​.tr​/db​/ced​/menu​/ced​_karar​_1993​-2021​_20220217110839​.pdf. 61. T. C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı, “Salda Gölü Özel Çevre Koruma Bölgesi,” https:​//​tvk​.csb​.gov​.tr​/salda​-golu​-i​-91578. 62. Cumhuriyet Gazetesi, “Salda’da Millet Bahçesi Olarak Duyurulan Alanı Özel Şirketin İşlettiği Ortaya Çıktı,” May 24, 2022, https:​//​www​.cumhuriyet​.com​.tr​ /turkiye​/saldada​-millet​-bahcesi​-olarak​-duyurulan​-alani​-ozel​-sirketin​-islettigi​-ortaya​ -cikti​-1939488. 63. EJAtlas, “Destruction of the Sweetgum Forests, Turkey,” August 4, 2014, https:​//​ejatlas​.org​/conflict​/destruction​-of​-the​-sweetgum​-forests​-turkey​?translate​=en; EJAtlas, “Danger of Extinction of Endemic Pearl Mullets in Van Lake, Turkey,” August 4, 2014, https:​//​ejatlas​.org​/conflict​/danger​-of​-extinction​-of​-endemic​-pearl​ -mullets​-in​-van​-lake​-turkey​?translate​=en. 64. For the history of anti-GMO mobilizations in Turkey, see EKOIQ, “Türkiye’de GDOlar&Toplumsal Muhalefet,” September 25, 2021, https:​//​www​.ekoiq​.com​/ turkiyede​-gdolar​-toplumsal​-muhalefet​/. 65. Enerji Atlası, “Jeotermal Santralleri,” https:​//​www​.enerjiatlasi​.com​/jeotermal​/. 66. Fundanur Öztürk, “Çambükü Köyünde OSB Mücadelesi: ‘Köyden geriye sadece evlerimiz kaldı,’” December 7, 2022, https:​//​www​.bbc​.com​/turkce​/articles​/ c6pv0y5zp78o. 67. TMOBB Maden Mühendisleri Odası, Kanal İstanbul Kazı/Patlatma/Nakliye Teknik Değerlendirme Raporu, December 2020, https:​//​www​.tmmob​.org​.tr​/sites​/ default​/files​/madenci​_0​.pdf. 68. Milliyet, “Nükleer Karşıtları Akkuyu ÇED Raporu’nun İptali İçin Dava Açtı,” December 31, 2014, https:​//​www​.milliyet​.com​.tr​/yerel​-haberler​/mersin​/ nukleer​-karsitlari​-akkuyu​-ced​-raporu​-nun​-iptali​-icin​-dava​-acti​-10549373; TMOBB Metalurji ve Malzeme Mühendisleri Odası, “Sinop’ta Nükleer Santral Davası Karar Duruşması Samsun’da Yapıldı,” April 1, 2022, https:​//​www​.metalurji​.org​.tr​/index​.php​ /davalar​-alt. 69. Şükrü Akıllı, “Saros Sahilleri de Rant Çemberinde,” http:​//​www​.edirneyenigun​ .com​/yazar​/4791​/saros​-sahilleri​-de​-rant​-emberinde​.html. 70. Yeşil Gazete, “Manisa Caferbey’de Çöp Tesisi İstemeyen Vatandaşlara Dava Açıldı,” February 24, 2022, https:​//​yesilgazete​.org​/manisa​-caferbeyde​-cop​-tesisi​ -istemeyen​-vatandaslara​-dava​-acildi​/.

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71. Gazete Duvar, “Köylüler Çöp Tesisine Karşı Belediye Önünde: O Başkan Buraya Gelecek,” September 30, 2022, https:​//​www​.gazeteduvar​.com​.tr​/koyluler​-cop​ -tesisine​-karsi​-belediye​-onunde​-o​-baskan​-buraya​-gelecek​-haber​-1583068. 72. For comprehensive testimonies of the resistance against nature destruction and socioeconomic and cultural impoverishment as a result of HEPPs in the Black Sea, see Mahmut Hamsici, Dereler ve İsyanlar, Ankara, Nota Bene Yayınları, 2010. 73. Yeni Asır, “Marmara Gölü Kurudu, Arazi Savaşları Başladı,” July 11, 2021, https:​//​www​.yeniasir​.com​.tr​/ege​/manisa​/2022​/07​/11​/marmara​-golu​-kurudu​-arazi​ -savaslari​-basladi; Nimet Kıraç, “Kuzey Ege’deki tek gölü kurutmayı nasıl başardık?” Oksijen (December 16–22, 2022): 36–37. 74. Bülent Kaçar, “Trakya İstanbul’un Arka Bahçesi midir?” in İsyanın ve Umudun Dip Dalgası. Günümüz Türkiye’sinden Politik Ekoloji Tartışmaları, edited by Sinan Erensü, Ethemcan Turhan, Fevzi Özlüer, and Arif Cem Gündoğan (İstanbul: Tekin Yayınevi, 2016), 169. 75. Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 258–59. 76. Türkiye Barolar Birliği, Ergene Derin Deniz Deşarjı Projesi ve Marmara Denizi: Ortak İnceleme Raporu (Ankara: Türkiye Barolar Birliği, 2015), 26. 77. T. C. Tarım ve Orman Bakanlığı, “Toprak ve Arazi Sınıflaması Standartları Teknik Talimatı,” https:​//​www​.tarimorman​.gov​.tr​/Belgeler​/Mevzuat​/Talimatlar​/Topr akAraziSiniflamasiStandartlariTeknikTalimativeIlgiliMevzuat​_yeni​.pdf; Osman İnci, Coşkun Molla, and Boran İnci, Trakya’da Çevre Sorunları, November 26, 2011 (Ankara: Türkiye Barolar Birliği, 2014); Hakkı Kocaman, Yasemin Koldere Akın, and Adil Oğuzhan, “Trakya’da Ergene Nehri Kirliliğinin Tarım Üretimine Olan Etkisi: Edirne Örneği,” Karadeniz Fen Bilimleri Dergisi / The Black Sea Journal of Science 2, no. 5 (2011): 89–104. 78. Greenpeace Türkiye, “Marmara’nın Hastalığı: Derin Deniz Deşarjı,” August 25, 2021, https:​//​www​.greenpeace​.org​/turkey​/blog​/marmaranin​-hastaligi​-derin​-deniz​ -desarji​/. 79. Joan Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor, 211. 80. Aykut Çoban, “Community-based Ecological Resistance,” 445–46. 81. Feminerva, “İkizköy, Akbelen Ormanları Kadınlara Emanet,” no. 10 (Summer 2022): http:​//​feminerva​.com​/2022​/06​/ikizkoy​-akbelen​-ormanlari​-kadinlara​-emanet​/. 82. Cumhur Pekdemir, “Makine Mühendisleri Odası’nın Trakya’da Sanayileşme ve Çevre Sempozyumları ve Planlama Sürecine Katkısı,” in Trakya’da Çevre Sorunları, edited by Osman İnci et al., 19–20 (19–32). 83. Türkiye Barolar Birliği, Ergene Derin Deniz Deşarjı Projesi ve Marmara Denizi, Ortak İnceleme Raporu (Ankara: Türkiye Barolar Birliği, 2015). 84. TEMA Vakfı, Madencilik Faaliyetlerine Yönelik Yerel Savunuculuk Yöntemleri. 85. Cömert Uygar Erdem, Yurttaşlar İçin ÇED Süreci Takip Rehberi, Ekoloji Kolektifi Derneği (2018). 86. Osman İnci, Trakya Planlamasına İstanbul’un Desantralizasyonu Amaçlı Müdahalenin Boyutları ve Süreçleri, in Trakya’da Çevre Sorunları, 49; Sibel Bahçetepe, “Zehirlenen Türkiye . . . Su Yerine Metal Akıyor,” April 26, 2018, Cumhuriyet, https:​ //​www​.cumhuriyet​.com​.tr​/haber​/zehirlenen​-turkiye​-su​-yerine​-metal​-akiyor​-964876; Bahar Gönül, “Trakya’nın kayıp toprakları: Ergene Zehir Saçıyor,” Independent



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Türkiye, March 1, 2021, https:​//​www​.indyturk​.com​/node​/323211​/haber​/trakyan​%C4​ %B1n​-kay​%C4​%B1p​-topraklar​%C4​%B1​-ergene​-zehir​-sa​%C3​%A7​%C4​%B1yor. 87. Çevre Hukuku Ağı, https:​//​www​.cevrehukuku​.org​/​#features. 88. Birgün, “Akbelen Ormanı’nda nöbet tutan İkizköylü kadın: Jandarma kolumu morarttı,” August 10, 2021, https:​//​www​.birgun​.net​/haber​/akbelen​-ormani​-nda​-nobet​ -tutan​-ikizkoylu​-kadin​-jandarma​-kolumu​-morartti​-354714. 89. Beyza Üstün, “Çevreci misin Vay Vay,” in Doğayı, Emeği, Yaşamı Korumak: Ekoloji Politik Yazılar (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2021), 95–97. 90. Füsun Gökalan Çımrın, “Bergama Köylü Hareketinin Dünü ve Bugünü,” Elektronik Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 14, no. 53 (Spring 2015): 316 (310–17). 91. Etienne Copeaux, “Esquisses sur la Turquie des années 1990 (5) La révolte de Bergama” (2010), https:​//​www​.susam​-sokak​.fr​/article​-esquisses​-sur​-la​-turquie​-des​ -annees​-1990​-5​-eurogold​-et​-bergama​-55168213​.html. 92. Conde, “Resistance to Mining: A Review,” 83. 93. An example is a zone à défendre (ZAD) in France (zone to defend) and occupation of land by activists resisting “large useless imposed projects” in rural areas, such as an airport (Notre-Dame des Landes), which gave rise to European Forums against Unnecessary Imposed Projects after 2012. 94. Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change since 2021, according to Presidential Decree No. 85, T. C. Resmi Gazete, 29.10.2021, No. 31643, https:​//​www​.resmigazete​.gov​.tr​/eskiler​/2021​/10​/20211029​.pdf. 95. Euronews, “Kaz Dağları: ‘Su ve Vicdan Nöbeti’ geri adım atmıyor,” August 7, 2019, https:​//​tr​.euronews​.com​/2019​/08​/07​/kaz​-daglari​-su​-ve​-vicdan​-nobeti​-geri​-adim​ -atmiyor. 96. Sözcü Gazetesi, “Sendika Şantiyeye Kilit Vurdu! Kaz Dağlarında Büyük Buluşma,” August 5, 2019, https:​//​www​.sozcu​.com​.tr​/2019​/gundem​/binler​-akin​ -ediyor​-kaz​-daglarinda​-buyuk​-bulusma​-5266105​/​?utm​_source​=ilgili​_haber​&utm​ _medium​=free​&utm​_campaign​=ilgilihaber. 97. Merve Kara-Kaşka, “Antalya’da öldürülen aktivist Büyüknohutçu’nun cinayeti neden halen çözülemedi?” May 9, 2022, https:​//​www​.bbc​.com​/turkce​/haberler​-dunya​ -61318158. 98. Yeni Akit, “Sözde Çevrecileri Almanlar Fonluyor,” September 25, 2022, https:​ //​www​.yeniakit​.com​.tr​/haber​/sozde​-cevrecileri​-almanlar​-fonluyor​-1693525​.html. 99. A. Haber, “Sözde Çevreciler Milli Enerjiye Karşı Birleşti,” April 12, 2018, https:​//​www​.ahaber​.com​.tr​/gundem​/2018​/04​/12​/sozde​-cevreciler​-milli​-enerjiye​-karsi​ -birlesti. 100. H-A. van Der Heijden, “Environmental Movements and International Political Opportunity Structures,” Organization & Environment 19, no. 1 (March 2006): 30. 101. Scheidel et al., “Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability,” 589–90.

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Milliyet. “Nükleer Karşıtları Akkuyu ÇED Raporu’nun İptali İçin Dava Açtı.” December 31, 2014. https:​//​www​.milliyet​.com​.tr​/yerel​-haberler​/mersin​/nukleer​ -karsitlari​-akkuyu​-ced​-raporu​-nun​-iptali​-icin​-dava​-acti​-10549373 Ministry of Development. “Report on Turkey’s Initial Steps towards the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” 2016. http:​//​ www​.surdurulebilirkalkinma​.gov​.tr​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2016​/07​/2030​_Raporu​.pdf Ministry of Development. Turkey’s Sustainable Development Report: Claiming the Future, Ankara. June 2012. http:​//​www​.surdurulebilirkalkinma​.gov​.tr​/wp​-content​/ uploads​/2016​/07​/1​.Claiming​_the​_Future​.pdf Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. “Maden Yönetmeliğinde Değişiklik Yapılmasına Dair Yönetmelik.” March 1, 2022. https:​//​www​.resmigazete​.gov​.tr​/ eskiler​/2022​/03​/20220301​-11​.htm Mittelman, James H. “Globalisation and Environmental Resistance Politics.” Third World Quarterly 19, no. 5 (1998): 847–72. Mittelman, James H. Contesting Global Order: Development, Global Governance, and Globalization. London: Routledge, 2011. Moore, Jason W. “Sugar and the Expansion of the Early Modern World-Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization.” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 23, no. 3 (2000): 409–33. Naess, Arne. “The Shallow and the Deep Long-Range Ecology Movement. A Summary.” In Selected Works of Arne Naess, edited by A. Drengson and H. Glasser, 7–12. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2005. Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Özkaynak, Begüm, Aydın, Cem İskender, Ertör-Akyazı, Pınar, and Ertör, Irmak. “The Gezi Park Resistance from an Environmental Justice and Social Metabolism Perspective.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 26, no. 1 (2015): 99–114. Öztürk, Fundanur. “Çambükü Köyünde OSB Mücadelesi: ‘Köyden geriye sadece evlerimiz kaldı.’” December 7, 2022. https:​//​www​.bbc​.com​/turkce​/articles​/ c6pv0y5zp78o Pekdemir, Cumhur. “Makine Mühendisleri Odası’nın Trakya’da Sanayileşme ve Çevre Sempozyumları ve Planlama Sürecine Katkısı.” In Trakya’da Çevre Sorunları, edited by Osman İnci, Coşkun Molla, and Boran İnci, 19–32. Ankara: Türkiye Barolar Birliği, 2014. Presidential Decree No. 85, T.C. Resmi Gazete, October 29, 2021, no: 31643, https:​//​ www​.resmigazete​.gov​.tr​/eskiler​/2021​/10​/20211029​.pdf Scheidel, Arnim, Temper, Leah, Demaria, Federico, and Martínez‐Alier, Joan. “Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability: An Overview and Conceptual Framework.” Sustainability Science 13 (2018): 585–98. Sözcü Gazetesi. “Sendika Şantiyeye Kilit Vurdu! Kaz Dağlarında Büyük Buluşma.” August 5, 2019. https:​//​www​.sozcu​.com​.tr​/2019​/gundem​/binler​-akin​-ediyor​-kaz​ -daglarinda​-buyuk​-bulusma​-5266105​/​?utm​_source​=ilgili​_haber​&utm​_medium​ =free​&utm​_campaign​=ilgilihaber Sustainable Development Goals, Turkey’s Second Voluntary National Report, “Strong Grounds towards Common Goals. 2019. http:​//​www​.surdurulebilirkalkinma​.gov​

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.tr​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2020​/01​/TURKEY​-2nd​-VNR​-Report​-2019​-Strong​-Ground​ -towards​-Common​-Goals​_web​.pdf T.C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı. “İlk ÇED Yönetmeliğinin Yayınladığı 1993 Yılından 2021 Yılı Sonuna Kadar Verilen ÇED Kararları.” https:​ //​webdosya​.csb​.gov​.tr​/db​/ced​/menu​/ced​_karar​_1993​-2021​_20220217110839​.pdf T.C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı. “Mülga ÇED Yönetmelikleri.” https:​//​ced​.csb​.gov​.tr​/mulga​-ced​-yonetmelikleri​-uygulamasi T.C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı. “Çevresel Etki Değerlendirme Yönetmeliği.” July 29, 2022. https:​//​www​.resmigazete​.gov​.tr​/eskiler​/2022​/07​ /20220729​-2​.htm T.C. Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı. “İklim Değişikliği Başkanlığı, Birleşmiş Milletler İklim Değişikliği Çerçeve Sözleşmesi.” https:​//​iklim​.gov​.tr​/bm​ -iklim​-degisikligi​-cerceve​-sozlesmesi​-i​-33 T.C. Çevre, Şehircilik, İklim Değişikliği Bakanlığı. “Korunan Alanların Tespitine İlişkin Yönetmelik Değişikliği Resmi Gazetede.” March 5, 2022. https:​//​csb​ .gov​.tr​/korunan​-alanlarin​-tespitine​-iliskin​-yonetmelik​-degisikligi​-resmi​-gazetede​ -bakanlik​-faaliyetleri​-32059 T.C. Tarım ve Orman Bakanlığı. “Toprak ve Arazi Sınıflaması Standartları Teknik Talimatı.” https:​//​www​.tarimorman​.gov​.tr​/Belgeler​/Mevzuat​/Talimatlar​/ToprakAra ziSiniflamasiStandartlariTeknikTalimativeIlgiliMevzuat​_yeni​.pdf Tansel, Cemal Burak. “Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey: Beyond the Narratives of Progress.” South European Society and Politics 23, no. 2 (2018): 197–217. Tansel, Cemal Burak. “The Shape of ‘Rising Powers’ to Come? The Antinomies of Growth and Neoliberal Development in Turkey.” New Political Economy 25, no. 5 (2020): 791–812. TEMA Vakfı. “Ordu’nun %74’ü Madenlere Ruhsatlı.” July 8, 2021. https:​//​www​ .tema​.org​.tr​/basin​-odasi​/basin​-bultenleri​/ordunun​-yuzde​-74​-u​-madenlere​-ruhsatli TEMA Vakfı. “Türkiye Maden Ruhsatlarının Tehdidi Altında: 24 İlde 20 Bine Yakın Maden Ruhsatı.” April 22, 2022. https:​//​www​.tema​.org​.tr​/basin​-odasi​/basin​ -bultenleri​/turkiye​-maden​-ruhsatlarinin​-tehdidi​-altinda TEMA Vakfı. Afyon ve Çevresinde Madencilik. July 2021. https:​//​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​ .com​/Uploads​/Cms​/afyon​-ve​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf TEMA Vakfı. Erzincan-Tunceli ve Çevresinde Madencilik. October 2021. https:​//​cdn​ -tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/erzincan​-ve​-tunceli​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf TEMA Vakfı. Kahramanmaraş ve Çevresinde Madencilik. October 2021. https:​//​cdn​ -tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/kahramanmaras​-ve​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf TEMA Vakfı. Kaz Dağları Yöresinde Madencilik. Nisan 2020. https:​//​cdn​-tema​ .mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/kaz​-daglari​-raporu​_1​_1​.pdf TEMA Vakfı. Muğla ve Çevresinde Madencilik. October 2021. https:​//​cdn​-tema​ .mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/karaman​-ve​-cevresinde​-madencilik​_1​.pdf TEMA Vakfı. Tekirdağ-Kırklareli ve Çevresinde Madencilik. October 2021. https:​//​ cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/tekirdag​-ve​-kirklareli​-cevresinde​-madencilik​ _1​.pdf



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TEMA Vakfı. Zonguldak-Bartın ve Çevresinde Madencilik. October 2021. https:​ //​cdn​-tema​.mncdn​.com​/Uploads​/Cms​/zonguldak​-ve​-bartin​-cevresinde​-madencilik​ _1​.pdf Temper, Leah, Demaria, Federico, Scheidel, Arnim, Del Bene, Daniela, and Martinez‐ Alier, Joan. “The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): Ecological Distribution Conflicts as Forces for Sustainability.” Sustainability Science 13 (2018): 573–84. TMOBB Maden Mühendisleri Odası. Kanal İstanbul Kazı/Patlatma/Nakliye Teknik Değerlendirme Raporu. December 2020. https:​//​www​.tmmob​.org​.tr​/sites​/default​/ files​/madenci​_0​.pdf TMOBB Metalurji ve Malzeme Mühendisleri Odası. “Sinop’ta Nükleer Santral Davası Karar Duruşması Samsun’da Yapıldı.” April 1, 2022. https:​//​www​.metalurji​ .org​.tr​/index​.php​/davalar​-alt TMOBB. “TMOBB Tarafından Çevresel Etki Değerlendirmesi (ÇED) Yönetmeliği’ne Karşı Dava Açıldı.” September 29, 2022. http:​//​www​.tmmob​.org​.tr​/icerik​/tmmob​ -tarafindan​-cevresel​-etki​-degerlendirmesi​-ced​-yonetmeligine​-karsi​-dava​-acildi “Toprak Koruma ve Arazi Kullanımı Kanunu.” https:​//​www​.mevzuat​.gov​.tr​/ MevzuatMetin​/1​.5​.5403​.pdf Üstün, Beyza. Doğayı, Emeği, Yaşamı Korumak. Ekoloji Politik Yazılar. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2021. van der Heijden, Hein-Anton. “Environmental Movements and International Political Opportunity Structures.” Organization & Environment 19, no. 1 (March 2006): 28–45. Yeni Akit. “Sözde Çevrecileri Almanlar Fonluyor.” September 25, 2022. https:​//​www​ .yeniakit​.com​.tr​/haber​/sozde​-cevrecileri​-almanlar​-fonluyor​-1693525​.html Yeni Asır. “Marmara Gölü Kurudu, Arazi Savaşları Başladı.” July 11, 2021. https:​//​ www​.yeniasir​.com​.tr​/ege​/manisa​/2022​/07​/11​/marmara​-golu​-kurudu​-arazi​-savaslari​ -basladi Yeşil Gazete. “Manisa Caferbey’de Çöp Tesisi İstemeyen Vatandaşlara Dava Açıldı.” February 24, 2022. https:​//​yesilgazete​.org​/manisa​-caferbeyde​-cop​-tesisi​-istemeyen​ -vatandaslara​-dava​-acildi​/ Yılmaz Turgut, Nükhet. “Giriş. Çevreyi Koruyucu Uluslararası Sözleşmelerin Yadsınamaz Önemi.” In Uluslararası Çevre Koruma Sözleşmeleri, 11–38. Ankara:Türkiye Barolar Birliği, 2014. Yoğurtçu, Mehmet Yoğurtçu. “Kamu Yararı Çerçevesinde Acele Kamulaştırma.” ABMYO Dergisi 42 (2016): 35–55. Yeşil Gazete. “Zeytinlikleri Tehdit Eden Kanun Teklifine Karşı Tek Ses: Zeytinime Dokunma.” December 12, 2022. https:​//​yesilgazete​.org​/zeytinlikleri​-tehdit​-eden​ -kanun​-teklifine​-karsi​-tek​-ses​-zeytinime​-dokunma​/

‌‌‌C hapter Four

Gendered Insecurities an‌‌d Feminist Resistance in Turkey Marella Bodur Ün

Global social and economic inequalities, exacerbated by neoliberal policies, civil wars leading to mass displacement of people, nuclear proliferation, climate crisis, the spread of infectious diseases, and “gender ideology,” have all led to widespread perceptions of insecurity and anxiety in everyday lives of people around the globe. These global anxieties and insecurities have, in part, led to the recent global surge in far-right, conservative, populist parties and leaders, and anti-gender discourses and movements that have articulated gendered, exclusionary narratives promising “protection” (of borders, identities, jobs, etc.), “order,” “stability,” “control” in the face of perceived or real threats including “illegal migrants,” “terrorists,” “feminists,” “LGBTQI+ movements,” “viruses and diseases,” and “global norms such as gender equality.” This chapter focuses on one such perceived threat—“gender ideology”— that has generated anxiety that has led to the emergence of “anti-gender” campaigns and movements around the globe, threatening gender equality and reproductive and LGBTQI+ rights. Drawing on the insights from the literature on ontological (in)security and feminist scholarship, this chapter focuses on the Turkish context, where gender equality legislation and policies have been increasingly negated by anti-gender and pro-family conservative discourses and policies adopted by the successive Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi— Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments over the past fifteen years. The study explores “the masculinist restoration project,”1 which has been underway in Turkey to reinstate male dominance through dismantling gender equality legislation (such as the Istanbul Convention and the Law No. 123

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6248), and to cope with the symptoms of neoliberal global policies, which have led to various insecurities and ontological vulnerabilities. The first part of the chapter brings together insights from the ontological (in)security research and feminist scholarship to place gendered insecurities, anti-genderism, and the contestation of the global gender equality norm into its wider context. The second part analyzes the way global gender norms have been filtered through the Turkish context since the AKP’s rise to power in 2002 and specifically since 2010 when the AKP consolidated its power. It focuses on the discourses and strategies employed and policies introduced by the governing AKP to challenge and devalue the global gender equality norm. The third part explores how the project of masculinist restoration, imposed by the successive AKP governments, has triggered physical and ontological insecurity for women and produced tensions and resistance in women’s lives. ONTOLOGICAL (IN)SECURITY AND ANTI-GENDERISM IN NEOLIBERAL SETTINGS Existing literature on ontological (in)security draws from Anthony Giddens’s work,2 which defines ontological security as the security of the self and stability of being, rather than physical safety.3 Scholars who explore the ontological (in)security of individuals or groups have emphasized the importance of self-narratives to address existential anxieties triggered by dislocations of globalization.4 They have pointed to interruptions and crises, as a result of which individuals or groups “lose their stabilizing anchor (their sense of security) and their ability to sustain a linear narrative and answer questions about doing, acting and being.”5 These scholars have drawn on the work of Giddens, who defined ontological security as referring to “the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and the constancy of the surrounding social and material environments of action.”6 For Giddens, “to be ontologically secure is to possess . . . ‘answers’ to fundamental existential questions,” concerning the nature of existence and being, the relations between human life and the external world, the existence of others, and (the continuity of) self-identity.7 A stable sense of self-identity requires “a consistent feeling of biographical continuity,” an “ongoing ‘story’ about the self,” that must be produced and reflexively sustained through regular social interaction with others in an external world of occurrences.8 For Giddens, ontological security relies on the trust of others, which is like an “emotional inoculation against existential anxieties” that one might experience.9 Disruptions in the assumed permanence and dependability of the social and physical world result in a loss of trust and threaten the sense of self-identity, which in turn triggers anxiety and thus, ontological insecurity.10



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For Giddens, the development of information technology, the transformation of capitalism, the threat of ecological catastrophe, the crisis of the welfare state, the weakening of the nation-state, and the crisis of the patriarchal family have all resulted in a new society, a “run-away” world, which is marked by new risks and uncertainties.11 In such circumstances, when self-narratives are called into question, individuals and groups tend to reaffirm their routines and their threatened self-identities to deal with anxieties and potential threats to their physical and/or ontological security. The structural conditions of insecurity related to globalization lead individuals and groups to retreat into familiar and comfortable identities and narratives of religion and nationalism in their search for stability and ontological security.12 When levels of ontological insecurity and existential anxiety increase, the result is often “a securitization of subjectivity,” where individuals or groups might appeal to an essentialist, exclusionary, “stable” identity and to a self-narrative constructed in relation to an Other, an outsider, which may lead to or perpetuate conflict and violence.13 Many scholars have pointed to the recent changes in patterns of marriage, cohabitation, divorce, women’s economic activity, and the growing diversity of family forms, arguing that the domestic sphere remains in a transition period where diversity, rather than the traditional family, is the norm.14 The success of women’s movements and “the crisis of the patriarchal family” have challenged and transformed the previous patriarchal ordering and routines of society, triggering ontological insecurity for some members of society, whose “biographical continuity” has been disrupted, whose privileges and power positions have been questioned and delegitimized. Of late, the feelings of anxiety and insecurity, triggered by a perceived threat of the so-called gender ideology, have led to the emergence of “anti-gender” campaigns and movements across the globe,15 which have articulated exclusionary narratives promising “protection” of the moral fabric of society and the traditional family. For anti-gender movements and activists, “gender ideology” is a destructive force as it rejects natural and God-given biological sex and views gender as socially constructed, and thus, undermines the traditional, heteronormative family, and national cultures. Anti-gender movements are viewed as part of a broader alliance of right-wing forces that mount a challenge against liberal democracy and neoliberalism, which have triggered feelings of anxiety, unfairness, and insecurity around the globe.16 In neoliberal settings, states have reduced their support in such areas as health, child, and elderly care, shifting their socioeconomic responsibilities onto private households (i.e., to women). Women’s unpaid social reproductive work in the private sphere of the family has been viewed as an antidote to neoliberalism’s destructive impacts on society.17 Butler argues that “as neoliberal economic policies devastate the work lives and the sense of futurity for many people

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who face contingent labor and unpayable debt, the turn against ‘gender’ is a way of shoring up a traditional sense of place and privilege.”18 Graff and Korolczuk also view anti-gender mobilization as a reaction to neoliberalism.19 Yet they conceptualize neoliberalism not only as an economic practice but also as a cultural paradigm, which entails “extreme forms of commodification and individualism.”20 Graff and Korolczuk argue that in contrast to their American counterpart, anti-gender movements in Central and Eastern Europe point to “the collusion between liberal democracy and market liberalism” as “market democracy and gender equality policies were introduced simultaneously” as part of the process of integration to the West/the European Union. Anti-gender actors in Central and Eastern Europe promote the traditional family and support social spending and various social policies targeting traditional families, by criticizing individualism and self-sufficiency promoted by neoliberalism and “Western ideological colonialism.”21 The traditional family is viewed as a site of resistance against “the onslaught of ‘Western individualism’” and feminism is presented as part and parcel of neoliberalism.22 For some scholars, “gender ideology” is an empty signifier that takes on different meanings in different sociocultural, economic, and political contexts.23 Anti-gender actors redirect different kinds of socioeconomic and political concerns and insecurities to perceived threats to the family, and, thus, to the national community. For instance, Wilkinson’s work reveals that anti-gender campaigns and pro-family leaders in Mexico have linked such disparate issues as security and gender politics by redirecting security concerns to moral debates over gender.24 For Graff and Korolczuk, replacing feminism, “gender” has come to embody the crisis of the traditional family, the erosion of social ties as well as economic exploitation of pure people by corrupt elites in the right-wing populist narratives.25 Similarly, analyzing anti-gender movements and rhetoric both within national contexts and globally, some scholars have argued that “anti-genderism” acts as a “symbolic glue,” uniting diverse actors with different ideologies, including illiberal populists, “different Christian Churches, orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Muslims, mainstream conservatives, far-right parties, fundamentalist groups and in some countries even football hooligans” in Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Africa.26 For some, “gender ideology” is employed as a “rhetorical counter-strategy” by transnational counter-movements27 to delegitimize the claims of feminist and LGBTQI+ movements and to reverse progressive laws and policies concerning gender and sexual rights. Indeed, the anti-gender movements have threatened reproductive and LGBTQI+ rights, have combated gender studies and gender mainstreaming, and have blocked numerous policy initiatives aimed at



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combating gender-based violence in states as diverse as France, Mexico, Colombia, Germany, Ukraine, Georgia, Italy, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.28 Anti-gender rhetoric in Turkey shares commonalities with anti-gender discourses in diverse contexts regarding their opposition to the concept of gender, LGBTQI+ rights, and gender mainstreaming. Anti-gender actors in Turkey also call for the dismantling of existing women-friendly legislation and policies. In the Turkish context, anti-genderism is also intertwined with “the crisis of masculinity.” In the Turkish case, Kandiyoti points to an emerging project of “masculinist restoration,” aiming to reinstate patriarchy “at a point in time when patriarchy is no longer fully secure” and “female subordination is no longer securely hegemonic,” as a result of vibrant women’s movements, women’s integration into the labor market, and the ensuing decline of the male breadwinner model.29 For Kandiyoti, the recourse to violence against women and sustained resistance to the gender equality norm result from a crisis of masculinity and point to the attempts at reproducing patriarchy and restoring male dominance, upholding male privileges (e.g., through bypassing and dismantling laws).30 Furthermore, adopting a neoliberal approach to social policy, successive AKP governments have viewed women’s unpaid reproductive work in the family as a corrective to neoliberalism’s destructive socioeconomic impact and, thus, have presented socioeconomic anxieties, uncertainties, and insecurities as a problem of gender equality and liberation of women. As their East European and Latin American counterparts, anti-gender actors in Turkey, including the ruling AKP, have constructed their anti-gender frames from a pro-family perspective and with reference to the national and religious values in their efforts to appeal to the public, adopting anti-Western rhetoric. The next section focuses on pro-family, anti-gender, anti-Western/European, conservative, and nationalist discourses, and policies adopted by the AKP and radical conservative actors, especially since 2010. AKP, ANTI-GENDERISM, AND THE MASCULINIST RESTORATION PROJECT Established in 2001, the AKP defined itself as a “conservative democratic” party. After winning a parliamentary majority in the November 2002 general elections, the AKP maintained Turkey’s pro-Western stance to enhance its legitimacy, introducing a series of reform packages to meet the Copenhagen criteria for accession to the European Union. During its first two terms, AKP governments (2002–2011) also responded to the demands of a vibrant women’s movement, which pressured the state to enact and modify domestic

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legislation to harmonize both with the EU gender acquis and the global gender equality norms. The ruling AKP introduced several women-friendly legislations in the form of a new labor law (2003) and a criminal code (2004), with provisions ensuring gender equality, and revised Article 10 of the Constitution (2004) to state that men and women are equal and that the state is responsible for ensuring the implementation of their equal rights. The Directorate for Women’s Status prepared national action plans both to promote gender equality (National Action Plan for Gender Equality 2008–2013) and to prevent domestic violence against women (National Action Plan for Combating Domestic Violence against Women 2007–2010). The AKP also signed the Istanbul Convention (the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence) in 2011 and adopted the Law on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence against Women (Law No. 6284) (2012), which provides for preventive imprisonment measures against perpetrators of domestic violence. Despite these progressive pieces of legislation, AKP’s discourses and actions reflected the party’s conservative stance on women’s issues. Conservative gender norms and values have always been “intrinsic” to AKP’s ideology,31 which comprises a blend of neoliberalism, religious conservatism, populism, and authoritarianism.32 For instance, during the adoption of the 2004 criminal code, the AKP inserted a last-minute proposal into the reform package to re-criminalize adultery “to protect the unity of the family.”33 AKP’s conservative stance on women’s rights has become more evident since 2010, when former Prime Minister (now President) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rejected the gender equality norm, stating that he did not “believe in the equality of men and women,” referring to “inherent differences” between men and women.34 The successive AKP governments have increasingly introduced policies specifically targeting the family rather than gender equality.35 In 2011, the former prime minister announced the new Ministry of Family and Social Policies, which replaced the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs, saying that “[w]e are a conservative democratic party. The family is important to us.”36 Following its electoral victory in 2011, the AKP consolidated its political dominance, curtailing the power of the military and the judiciary. During its third term in office (2011–2015) the ruling AKP’s populist tendencies became more evident as the party adopted discourses that constructed a societal divide between the religious, “moral” AKP supporters and the non-religious, “immoral” others (e.g., leftists, feminists, minorities, LGBTQI+ people, environmentalists), often cast as enemies of the nation.37 Especially after the Gezi Park protests of 2013 and the failed coup attempt of July 2016, the AKP further consolidated and centralized its power, switching to presidentialism with the 2017 constitutional referendum. During this term, the ruling AKP further reinforced religious conservative values as reflected in its increasingly



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pro-family, pro-natalist, anti-feminist discourses and policies. Leading members of the party employed discourses that aimed to regulate women’s appearance in the public sphere, their bodies, sexuality, and behavior, casting women as guardians of the community’s moral order. For instance, complaining about “moral corruption” in Turkey, the former deputy prime minister urged women to behave modestly, advising women to “not laugh in public.”38 Viewing the reproductive rights of women as threats to the traditional family, and thus to the nation’s future, the former Prime Minister Erdoğan urged women to have at least three children.39 These discourses were also followed by pro-family and pro-natalist policies aimed at reversing existing gender and sexual rights, such as an attempted ban on abortion and a law limiting Caesarean sections.40 While conflicts over values, beliefs, and identities have led to the increasingly populist and authoritarian governance in Turkey, neoliberal economic policies, rising economic inequalities and insecurities, and changing demographic trends have been important factors in paving the way for familialist discourses and social policies. Pro-family discourses of AKP governments underlay the party’s neoliberal approach to social policy, which assigned a key role to the family in welfare provision and viewed women as caregivers for children, the disabled, and the elderly in the household.41 Women’s caring responsibilities within the family in Turkey have reinforced women’s traditional gender roles, preventing them from balancing their work and family lives, and thus, limiting their access to the labor market.42 Women’s labor force participation rate remained low at 31.84 percent compared to 69.41 percent of men in 2022, with Turkey ranking 132nd out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report in terms of labor force participation.43 Thus, the ruling party has supported both neoliberalism and conservative values and its narratives and practices have rested comfortably on “the marriage of convenience” between neoliberal social policies with “a neo-conservative familism that cements ideals of female domesticity.”44 Alongside pro-family and pro-natalist discourses and policies, the party leadership has targeted feminists, condemning them as “traitors,” who strive to promote Western/European gender equality norms in Turkey. Feminists and the (Western/European) gender equality norm that they promoted were cast as “alien” threats to the traditional family, to Islamic religious and Turkish national values, and the future of the nation.45 Thus, the ruling AKP gradually marginalized feminist groups and women’s organizations, which were increasingly critical of the government’s conservative pro-family policies. The AKP encouraged the formation of pro-government conservative women’s organizations, most notably the Women and Democracy Organization (KADEM), which help legitimize and disseminate the party’s conservative gender rhetoric and policies.46 KADEM has promoted a notion of “gender

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justice,”47 based on Islam, as an alternative to the gender equality norm.48 “Gender justice” is presented as a local (as opposed to universal/Western/ European) construct as it acknowledges women’s inherent qualities (fıtrat), viewing the relationship between women and men in terms of “complementarity,” not equality.49 In developing an alternative norm, KADEM still used the term “gender” but bent its meaning and content to refer to fixed social roles and biological differences between males and females.50 More recently, a new “anti-gender” narrative has been increasingly articulated by a vocal radical conservative religious bloc, including some AKP officials, faith-based organizations, religious sects, and conservative Islamist writers and columnists in Turkey. This radical conservative bloc has devalued and denounced not only the terms “gender” and “gender equality” but also KADEM’s “gender justice,” viewing it as an anti-Islamic, anti-family attempt to promote “gender ideology.”51 This bloc favors rolling back existing legislation that aims to ensure gender equality, including the Istanbul Convention, the law on Protecting Family and Preventing Violence against Women (Law No. 6284), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.52 Similar to their counterparts in East Europe and Latin America, radical conservatives reject and devalue “gender” and “gender equality” as “Western/European” (thus, anti-Islamic) imports that serve to undermine traditional gender roles and identities, which they view as God-given or biologically predetermined rather than as socially constructed. The radical conservative bloc targeted the Istanbul Convention for allegedly promoting homosexuality and legitimizing same-sex marriage, which would ultimately destroy the traditional heteronormative family and lead to moral decay.53 Emphasizing the traditional role of women and family values and pointing to the essential incompatibility of Turkey’s cultural and religious values with the Istanbul Convention, the radical conservative bloc called on the government to pull Turkey out of the Convention and to dismantle the existing legal frameworks ensuring gender equality.54 Thus, in the Turkish context, anti-genderism gets entangled with anti-Western/anti-European, pro-Islamist, and nationalist narratives. The anti-gender rhetoric in Turkey also goes hand in hand with “the masculinist restoration project” which employs the strategy of what Özkazanç calls “masculine victimization.”55 Maraşlı, for instance, portrayed the legislation combating violence against women, such as the Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284, as “threats” to men’s rights as such legislation allegedly prioritized the rights of women at the expense of men’s rights.56 Maraşlı portrays men as the real victims of domestic violence as, for her, protective orders restrict “men’s rights” to property and free movement by preventing them from returning home.57 Radical conservatives further delegitimized the Istanbul Convention, arguing that the legislation combating violence against



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women is the main reason for the increase in the rates of femicide in Turkey over the past decade.58 To sum up, the governing AKP and vocal radical conservative actors have increasingly adopted pro-family, anti-gender, anti-Western/European, conservative, and nationalist narratives and policies, emphasizing “homegrown and national” (yerli ve milli) norms and values, especially since 2010 in their attempts to reject the concept of “gender,” to reverse women’s legislative gains eliminating gender inequality, and to restore male dominance and privilege. Increasing the ontological security of one group (in this case, heterosexual men), through the project of masculinist restoration, has further triggered the already existing physical and ontological insecurity of women and LGBTQI+ people as anti-gender actors have targeted them, threatening their physical safety as well as their sense of self-identity. Yet feminist politics and women’s collective activism in Turkey have continued to expose the gendered nature of nationalist and conservative religious discourses of anti-gender actors and have shown resilience in defending and engendering democracy and fundamental human rights in the past fifteen years. CREATING NEW VULNERABILITIES FOR WOMEN AND FEMINIST RESISTANCE Giddens argues that there are four different ways to face the risks and uncertainties of late modernity and to deal with threats to ontological security. These “affective reactions” include “pragmatic acceptance,” “sustained optimism,” “cynical pessimism,” and “radical engagement.”59 Giddens identifies social movements as the main vehicle of “radical engagement” to contest and reduce the impact of perceived sources of threat.60 In late modernity, Giddens argues, emancipatory politics of the past (“politics of inequality”) has been accompanied by what he calls “life politics.”61 “Life politics” is a politics of cultural identity, a politics of choice; it is “a politics of self-actualization in a reflexively ordered environment.”62 Giddens points to the feminist movement as a source of a new radical or transformative politics in late modern times, arguing that “[a]n ‘ethics of the personal’ is a grounding feature of life politics, just as the more established ideas of justice and equality are of emancipatory politics. The feminist movement has pioneered attempts made to connect these concerns with one another.”63 As a site for both emancipatory and life politics and identity/difference construction, the feminist movement provides empowerment, self-validation, feelings of belonging and confidence, and, thus, ontological security. For over the past four decades, the women’s movement in Turkey has been a site for empowerment, self-exploration, solidarity, and resistance. The

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concerted efforts of the women’s movement have resulted in the adoption of numerous women-friendly legislations and have challenged the sexist practices and norms of society. Emerging in the mid-1980s, the women’s movement made public women’s oppression despite the egalitarian discourse of the state.64 In the late 1980s and early 1990s, feminists and women’s groups65 adopted several different forms of activism such as issue-based campaigns, street protests, petition signings, journal publishing, organization of conferences to expose and challenge the gendered codes in Turkish society, and the drawing of attention to such “private” issues as domestic violence against women and sexual harassment in public places and the workplace.66 While in the 1980s and 1990s, women’s groups and organizations framed their claims for gender equality as a part of the overall project of consolidating and deepening democracy in Turkey, after the European Union’s decision to officially recognize Turkey as a candidate for full membership in 1999, most debates around gender equality in the country took place in relation to the Europeanization process. In the early 2000s, the potential membership of Turkey in the European Union provided an opportunity space, which feminists successfully used to campaign and press for the revision of the seventy-five-year-old civil code as well as the criminal code. In 2001, the Parliament passed a new civil code, which established full equality between spouses. Feminist and women’s organizations also benefited from the networking and funding opportunities presented by the Europeanization process. The European Women’s Lobby Coordination for Turkey (Avrupa Kadın Lobisi Türkiye Koordinasyonu) pressured the government to transpose EU gender equality directives into national law.67 Furthermore, feminist and women’s organizations received support from the European Union under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance to implement a variety of projects to improve gender equality in Turkey. Women’s organizations, such as the Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation, Women for Women’s Human Rights—New Ways, and the We Will Stop Femicides Platform, made policy recommendations to combat violence against women and cooperated with state institutions, including the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, throughout the negotiation process of the Istanbul Convention and its ratification (2012), and the subsequent preparation and enactment of the Law on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence against Women (Law No. 6284) (2012).68 Women’s organizations also successfully organized the “my body my choice” campaign to protest the governing AKP’s plan to ban abortion. The government had to shelve its plan to propose anti-abortion legislation.69 While women’s organizations were able to affect gender policies in the 1990s and the early 2000s, in the second decade of the 2000s, the converging projects of neoliberalism, conservatism, authoritarianism, and populism,



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coupled with the fading credibility of the EU conditionality, created a distance between women’s organizations and the governing party. The AKP increasingly monopolized the heterogeneous public sphere by marginalizing independent civil society organizations, including independent women’s organizations, promoting pro-government women’s organizations that endorsed and legitimized the party’s pro-family, conservative social policies, and discourses. For instance, in 2014, the Ministry of Family and Social Policy announced that three pro-government conservative women’s organizations, including KADEM, would send representatives to a committee that would designate Turkey’s nominees for GREVIO, an independent body of experts which monitors the implementation of the Istanbul Convention.70 Due to the resistance of the Istanbul Convention Monitoring Platform, which included women’s and LGBTQI+ organizations, Feride Acar, an academic and a women’s rights activist, was nominated as Turkey’s GREVIO candidate.71 In 2015, feminist and women’s organizations, which have been addressing the issue of violence against women in Turkey for years, were excluded from the meeting of the Parliamentary Divorce Commission where they, as civil society organizations, were supposed to be consulted.72 As the government marginalized feminist and women’s organizations, newly created pro-government conservative organizations increasingly gained more visibility in the public sphere. KADEM gradually assumed the role of representative of Turkey’s women’s nongovernmental organizations on regional and international platforms.73 The AKP also marginalized those independent Islamist women’s organizations, such as the Capital City Women’s Platform Association (Başkent Kadın Platformu Derneği) and the Havle Women’s Association, that criticized AKP governments’ conservative gender politics.74 Having been marginalized and excluded from decision-making processes by the ruling AKP, secular women’s and LGBTQI+ organizations and feminist nongovernmental organizations, including Muslim feminist organizations such as the Havle Women’s Association, have established issue-specific joint networks and platforms (such as the Istanbul Convention Monitoring Platform of Turkey, EŞİK—the Women’s Platform for Equality, the Women’s Coalition, the Alimony Rights Women’s Platform) to expose and challenge AKP’s conservative anti-gender discourses and policies. While the campaigns, including the “Don’t Mess with My Outfit!” (Kıyafetime Karışma!), the “Equality, Justice, Woman Summit” (Eşitlik, Adalet, Kadın Zirvesi), and the “Women Are Strong Together” (Kadınlar Birlikte Güçlü), were organized mostly by feminists, they addressed all women. Indeed, the organizers refrained from using the term “feminism” to form broader alliances among different groups of women.75 Women’s joint networks and platforms have also prepared shadow reports for international monitoring mechanisms such as the Convention on the

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Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and GREVIO committees,76 calling on the government to fully implement the existing laws to ensure gender equality. More recently, women’s organizations have expressed their concerns over the removal of the terms “gender” and “gender equality” from official documents such as the latest national action plan on combating violence against women (2021–2025), viewing it as an attempt to recast women’s rights within a traditional heteronormative family frame.77 Women’s Human Rights—New Ways has criticized the government’s fourth National Action Plan on Combating Violence against Women for ignoring the patriarchal roots of violence against women, for “distance[ing] the issue from its social aspect and reduc[ing] the solution to an individual level,” and thus, for planning to combat violence against women through “individual training and support provided for perpetrators of violence such as anger management, stress management, substance abuse, and alcohol addiction treatment.”78 For women’s organizations and platforms, anti-gender, conservative religious discourses adopted by the ruling AKP rendered the legislation enacted to prevent and combat violence against women ineffective.79 In 2010, women’s and LGBTQI+ organizations established the We Will Stop Femicides Platform to monitor and fight against gender-based violence and femicide. The platform follows court cases involving violence against women and LGBTQI+ individuals and child abuse cases. In Turkey, despite the adoption of a law on combating violence against women, gendered violence is still prevalent. A 2014 report revealed that approximately 40 percent of women in Turkey experienced physical violence from their partners.80 Between 2020 and 2022, gender-based violence led to the death of at least 914 women at the hands of their intimate partners or male relatives.81 In 2022, 334 women were killed, and the death of 245 women was found suspicious.82 In 2013, the platform proposed an amendment to the criminal code (known as the “Özgecan Law”)83 to the Parliament to address the discriminatory sentence reductions offered to the defendants of femicide cases. In an increasingly authoritarian populist political atmosphere, shaped by anti-genderism and perceived threats to the heteronormative family and masculine power, the platform was sued in 2021 on the allegation that it carried out “illegal and immoral activities.”84 During the debates around the Istanbul Convention, independent feminist and women’s organizations staged protests across Turkey with the slogan “Istanbul Convention Keeps Women Alive” (İstanbul Sözleşmesi Yaşatır!), arguing that the withdrawal from the Convention would normalize violence against women and calling on the government to fully implement the legislation enacted to fight against gender-based violence.85 Despite such calls, in March 2021 President Erdoğan pulled Turkey out of the Istanbul Convention through a presidential decree. The president’s decision was justified on the



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ground that the Convention which “originally intended to promote women’s rights, was hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality—which is incompatible with Turkey’s social and family values.”86 The Convention was presented as a “threat” to the heteronormative family and the values of Turkish society. EŞİK—a joint platform of over 340 women’s and LGBTQI+ organizations—issued public statements, declaring that the president’s decision was unconstitutional.87 Women’s organizations also expressed concerns about the implications of this decision for existing legislative measures, such as Law No. 6284, and the hard-won gains of the women’s movement since the 1980s.88 Women’s organizations, feminist lawyers, and bar associations applied to the Council of State, demanding the annulment of the president’s decision.89 Under the rule of AKP, women’s organizations have also used social media effectively to create new counter-publics90 to challenge the official anti-gender discourses and conservative gender policies of the ruling elite and to continue to expose Turkey’s rising femicide rates. After the brutal murder of a university student Özgecan Aslan in Mersin in 2015, there was a campaign on social media with the hashtag #sendeanlat (#tellyourstorytoo), encouraging women to share their experiences of gender-based harassment and violence.91 Women shared both their experiences of gender-based violence and their anxieties and feelings of insecurity in a society based on gendered power hierarchies. Özgecan’s murder also sparked mass protests in Turkey with protestors wearing black to protest violence against women in the country. Şule Çet, another young university student, was raped and murdered in 2018 by two businessmen, who claimed that she committed suicide by throwing herself from the twentieth floor of a building in Ankara. Women’s organizations started a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #SuleCetIcinAdalet (#JusticeforŞuleÇet) to urge women to follow the trials of femicides.92 After the brutal murder of Pınar Gültekin, a university student, by her ex-boyfriend in Muğla in 2020, there were mass protests across Turkey, organized by women’s organizations to expose high femicide rates in the country and to criticize the ruling AKP for its attempts to roll back legislation combating violence against women, such as the Istanbul Convention.93 Women’s groups also initiated a social media campaign with the hashtag #ChallengeAccepted, which invited women to share black and white images of themselves to raise awareness of femicides and other forms of gender-based violence in Turkey.94 Through both social media and street activism, women have exposed everyday sexism in their lives, have shared their experiences of harassment and abuse, have connected with other women, forming solidarity, and thus have strengthened their ontological security in online and offline communities and counter-publics.95 For instance, the members of Havle, the first Muslim feminist women’s organization in Turkey, called on secular feminist

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activists for support and solidarity as they were targeted and threatened by internet trolls for their Muslim feminist identity and their support for LGBTQI+ rights.96 While feminist and women’s organizations were able to affect gender policies in the earlier decades, they have not had any opportunities for influencing decision-making processes since 2010. As the government has increased its restrictions on the activities of civil societal actors, feminists and women’s organizations have adopted new social practices and political strategies to undermine the gendered religious and nationalist discourses of anti-gender actors. They have increasingly turned to social media platforms to expose and resist AKP’s anti-gender, pro-family conservative narratives and policies. They have also continued to organize street protests as the women’s movement and feminist politics have gained mass appeal with tens of thousands marching on International Women’s Day and International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women demonstrations and Pride parades throughout Turkey, despite being targeted by anti-gender actors and being exposed to police violence.97 CONCLUSION The dissolution of traditional gender roles and disruption of previous gender hierarchies have unsettled hegemonic masculine narratives and challenged male power and privilege and a stable self-identity, creating feelings of ontological insecurity. The so-called gender ideology has generated existential anxieties and ontological vulnerabilities, which have led to the emergence of global anti-gender narratives and movements around the globe, threatening gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights. Neoliberal economic policies have also had destructive social impacts, triggering feelings of unfairness and insecurity around the globe. In neoliberal settings, denouncing the so-called gender ideology and adopting anti-gender narratives and policies have become “a way of shoring up a traditional sense of place and privilege”98 and coping with the socioeconomic anxieties and insecurities created by neoliberalism. Drawing on the insights from the literature on ontological (in)security and feminist scholarship, this chapter has explored “the masculinist restoration project” and anti-gender discourses and practices of radical conservative actors in Turkey that aim to restore male power and privilege through dismantling gender and sexual equality/diversity legislation (such as the Istanbul Convention) and delegitimizing the concepts of “gender” and “gender equality” in a neoliberal setting. The analysis reveals that, in the Turkish context, anti-gender actors have linked their narratives to both their support of the heteronormative family and their opposition to what they see as “Western/



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European norm intrusions,”99 which would undermine Islamic and national values, leading to societal breakdown. Furthermore, adopting neoliberal economic and social policies, the ruling AKP has presented socioeconomic anxieties, uncertainties, and insecurities as a problem of gender equality. Anti-genderism challenges people’s identities, bodily integrity, self-determination, and security. Indeed, the project of masculinist restoration in Turkey, which aims to defend male interests and uphold the structures of patriarchy, has further triggered the already existing physical and ontological insecurity of women, who have been resisting anti-gender, pro-family conservative narratives and identity impositions of the ruling AKP over the past fifteen years. This study points to the political agency of feminist groups and women’s organizations that have challenged, resisted, and subverted the narratives and practices of anti-gender actors and have brought to public attention issues of concern to different groups of women that might otherwise have remained excluded from the public sphere. In Turkey, women’s resistance has been expressed in multifaceted ways, through street protests and disclosures of gender-based violence and in diverse locations such as the streets, courts, and social media platforms, creating alternative counter-publics.100 For over four decades, the women’s movement has been a site for both empowerment and resistance. Feminist and women’s organizations have been struggling creatively to expose gendered norms, practices, and violence in Turkey and resisting gendered projects that have reinforced particular roles and identities for women, identifying them as symbols and guardians of community values, morality, and culture. They need to continue with their resistance and struggle to both expand and maintain the hard-won rights of women. NOTES 1. See Deniz Kandiyoti, “Locating the Politics of Gender: Patriarchy, Neo-liberal Governance and Violence in Turkey,” Research and Policy on Turkey 1, no. 2 (2016): 103–18. 2. See Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Polity, 1990); Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge, MA: Polity, 1991); Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives (New York: Routledge, 2000). 3. See, among others, Catarina Kinnvall, “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security,” Political Psychology 25, no. 5 (2004): 741–67; Stuart Croft, “Constructing Ontological Insecurity: The Insecuritization of Britain’s Muslims,” Contemporary Security Policy 33, no. 2 (2012): 219–35; Catarina Kinnvall, “Borders and Fear: Insecurity, Gender and the Far Right in Europe,” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 23, no. 4 (2015):

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514–29; Bahar Rumelili, “Identity and De-securitization: The Pitfalls of Conflating Ontological and Physical Security,” Journal of International Relations and Development 18 (2015): 52–74; Catarina Kinnvall and Jennifer Mitzen, “An Introduction to the Special Issue: Ontological Securities in World Politics,” Cooperation and Conflict 52, no. 1 (2017): 3–11. 4. See Kinnvall, “Globalization and Religious Nationalism”; Croft, “Constructing Ontological Insecurity.” 5. Kinnvall and Mitzen, “An Introduction,” 7. 6. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 92. 7. Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity, 47–55. 8. Ibid, 53–54. 9. Ibid, 40. 10. Ibid, 35–69. 11. Giddens, Runaway World. 12. For a detailed analysis, see Kinnvall, “Globalization and Religious Nationalism.” 13. Ibid, 749–67. 14. Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity. Volume 2, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997); Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1998), 89–98. 15. See, among others, Elizabeth Corredor, “Unpacking ‘Gender Ideology’ and the Global Right’s Antigender Countermovement,” Signs 44, no. 3 (2019): 613–38; Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte (eds.), Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); David Paternotte and Roman Kuhar, “Disentangling and Locating the ‘Global Right’: Anti-gender Campaigns in Europe,” Politics and Governance 6, no. 3 (2018): 6–19; Eszter Kováts and Maari Poim, Gender as Symbolic Glue: The Position and Role of Conservative and Far Right Parties in the Anti-gender Mobilizations in Europe (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, 2015); Elzbieta Korolczuk and Agnieszka Graff, “Gender as ‘Ebola from Brussels’: The Anticolonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism,” Signs 43, no. 4 (2018): 797–821; Annie Wilkinson, “Gender as Death Threat to the Family: How the ‘Security Frame’ Shapes Anti-gender Activism in Mexico,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23, no. 4 (2021): 535–57; Agnieszka Graff and Elzbieta Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment (New York: Routledge, 2022). 16. See Kováts and Poim, Gender as Symbolic Glue; Korolczuk and Graff, “Gender as ‘Ebola from Brussels’”; Andrea Krizsan and Conny Roggeband, “Towards a Conceptual Framework for Struggles over Democracy in Backsliding States: Gender Equality Policy in Central Eastern Europe,” Politics and Governance 6, no. 3 (2018): 90–100; Graff and Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics. 17. Melinda Cooper, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (New York: Zone Books, 2017). 18. Judith Butler, “What Threat? The Campaign against “Gender Ideology,” Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation 3 (2020): 6. 19. Graff and Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics, 167. 20. Ibid, 30.



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21. Korolczuk and Graff, “Gender as ‘Ebola from Brussels.’” 22. Graff and Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics, 34–35. 23. Stefanie Mayer and Birgit Sauer, “‘Gender Ideology’ in Austria: Coalitions around an Empty Signifier,” in Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, edited by Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); Wilkinson, “Gender as Death Threat to the Family.” 24. Wilkinson, “Gender as Death Threat to the Family.” 25. Graff and Korolczuk, Anti-Gender Politics, 60. 26. See Weronica Grzebalska, Ezster Kovats, and Andrea Petö, “Gender as Symbolic Glue: How Gender Become an Umbrella Term for the Rejection of the Neoliberal Order,” January 13, 2017, http:​//​politicalcritique​.org​/long​-read​/2017​/ gender​-as​-symbolic​-glue​-how​-gender​-became​-an​-umbrella​-term​-for​-the​-rejection​-of​ -the​-neoliberal​-order​/. 27. Corredor, “Unpacking ‘Gender Ideology.’” 28. European Parliament, “Backlash in Gender Equality and Women’s and Girls’ Rights,” Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, Directorate General for Internal Policies of the Union, PE 604.955–June 2018, https:​//​www​ .europarl​.europa​.eu​/RegData​/etudes​/STUD​/2018​/604955​/IPOL​_STU(2018)604955​ _EN​ .pdf; Kuhar and Paternotte, Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe; Wilkinson, “Gender as Death Threat to the Family”; Elizabeth Corredor, “The Religious Right and Anti-Genderism in Colombia,” in The Right against Rights in Latin America, edited by Leigh A. Payne, Julia Zulver, and Simón Escoffier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 78–97; Wilkinson, “Gender as Death Threat to the Family”; Anna Lavizzari and Zorica Siročić, “Contentious Gender Politics in Italy and Croatia: Diffusion of Transnational Anti-gender Movements to National Contexts,” Social Movement Studies 22, no. 4 (2023): 475–93; Maryna Shevtsova, “Religion, Nation, State, and Anti-Gender Politics in Georgia and Ukraine,” Problems of Post-Communism 70, no. 2 (2023): 163–74. 29. Kandiyoti, “Locating the Politics of Gender,” 109–110. 30. Ibid, 110. 31. Ibid. 32. See, for example, Simten Coşar and Metin Yeğenoğlu, “New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy in the Age of AKP,” South European Society and Politics 16, no. 4 (2011): 555–73; Feride Acar and Gülbanu Altunok, “The ‘Politics of Intimate’ at the Intersection of Neo-liberalism and Neo-conservatism in Contemporary Turkey,” Women’s Studies International Forum 41 (2013): 14–23; Dilek Cindoğlu and Didem Unal, “Gender and Sexuality in the Authoritative Discursive Strategies of ‘New Turkey,’” European Journal of Women’s Studies 24, no. 1 (2017): 39–54. 33. Helena Smith, “Turkey Split by Plan to Criminalise Adultery,” The Guardian (September 5, 2004), https:​//​www​.theguardian​.com​/world​/2004​/sep​/06​/turkey​ .helenasmith. 34. Birgün Daily, “Yaratılışımız farklı bayan!” October 17, 2010, https:​//​www​ .birgun​.net​/haber​-detay​/yaratilisimiz​-farkli​-bayan​-55553​.html.

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35. Berna Yazıcı, “The Return to the Family: Welfare, State, and Politics of the Family in Turkey,” Anthropological Quarterly 85, no. 1 (2012): 103–40. 36. Burçin Belge, “Women Policies Erased from Political Agenda,” Bianet, June 9, 2011, http:​//​bianet​.org​/bianet​/women​/130607​-women​-policies​-erased​-from​-political​ -agenda. 37. Bilge Yabancı, “Populism as the Problem Child of Democracy: The AKP’s Enduring Appeal and Use of Meso-level Actors,” Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16, no. 4 (2016): 599; Kandiyoti, “Locating the Politics of Gender,” 105. 38. Hürriyet Daily News, “Women Should not Laugh in Public, Turkish Deputy PM Says,” July 29, 2014, http:​//​www​.hurriyetdailynews​.com​/women​-should​-not​ -laugh​-in​-public​-turkish​-deputy​-pm​-says​-​-69732. 39. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkish PM Erdoğan Reiterates His Call for Three Children,” January 3, 2013, http:​//​www​.hurriyetdailynews​.com​/turkish​-pm​-erdogan​ -reiterates​-his​-call​-for​-three​-children​-38235. 40. Marella Bodur Ün, “Contesting Global Gender Equality Norms: The Case of Turkey,” Review of International Studies 45, no. 5 (2019), 839. 41. Yazıcı, “The Return to the Family”; Acar and Altunok, “The ‘Politics of Intimate’”; Ayşe Buğra, “Revisiting the Wollstonecraft Dilemma in the Context of Conservative Liberalism: The Case of Female Employment in Turkey,” Social Politics 21, no. 1 (2014): 148–66; Zafer Yılmaz, “‘Strengthening the Family’ Policies in Turkey: Managing the Social Question and Armoring Conservative–Neoliberal Populism,” Turkish Studies 16, no. 3 (2015): 371–90; Başak Akkan, “The Politics of Care in Turkey: Sacred Familialism in a Changing Political Context,” Social Politics 25, no. 1 (2018): 72–91. 42. Buğra, “Revisiting the Wollstonecraft Dilemma.” 43. World Economic Forum, Gender Gap Report 22, July 2022, https:​//​www3​ .weforum​.org​/docs​/WEF​_GGGR​_2022​.pdf, 342. 44. Kandiyoti, “Locating the Politics of Gender,” 111. 45. “Erdoğan’dan feministlere: Ya senin bizim dinimizle medeniyetimizle ilgin yok ki,” Diken, February 17, 2015, http:​//​www​.diken​.com​.tr​/erdogandan​-feministlere​-ya​ -senin​-bizim​-dinimizle​-medeniyetimizle​-ilgin​-yok​-ki​/. 46. Yabancı, “Populism”; Jessica Leigh Doyle, “Government Co-option of Civil Society: Exploring the AKP’s Role within Turkish Women’s CSOs,” Democratization, 25, no. 3 (2018): 445–63; Bodur Ün, “Contesting Global Gender Equality Norms.” 47. See Sare Aydın Yılmaz, “A New Momentum: Gender Justice in the Women’s Movement,” Turkish Policy Quarterly 13, no. 4 (2015): 107–15. 48. Bodur Ün, “Contesting Global Gender Equality Norms,” 841. 49. Ibid, 841–42. 50. Ibid, 843. 51. See, for instance, Sema Maraşlı, “Erkeğe Şiddete Dur De!” Cocukaile, November 27, 2016, www​.cocukaile​.net​/erkegesiddete​-dur​-de​/. 52. Maraşlı, “Erkeğe Şiddete Dur De!”; Abdurrahman Dilipak, “Önce Aile!” Yeni Akit, November 15, 2019, https:​//​www​.yeniakit​.com​.tr​/yazarlar​/abdurrahman​



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-dilipak​/once​-aile​-30482​.html; T24, “Saadet Partisi lideri Temel Karamollaoğlu: İstanbul Sözleşmesi Cinsiyeti Ortadan Kaldırmak İstiyor,” July 25, 2020, https:​//​t24​ .com​.tr​/haber​/saadet​-partisi​-genel​-baskani​-temel​-karamollaoglu​-istanbul​-sozlesmesi​ -cinsiyeti​-ortadan​-kaldirmak​-istiyor​,892949; Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkey May Consider Withdrawing from Istanbul Convention: AKP Official,” July 3, 2020, https:​//​www​.hurriyetdailynews​.com​/turkey​-may​-consider​-withdrawing​-from​-istanbul​ -convention​-akp​-official​-156247. 53. See Dilipak,“Önce Aile!” and “Teşekkürler,” Yeni Akit, March 21, 2021, https:​//​www​.yeniakit​.com​.tr​/yazarlar​/abdurrahman​-dilipak​/tesekkurler​-35295​.html; Sema Maraşlı, “İstanbul Sözleşmesi ve 6284 Sayılı Yasa Aileyi Korumuyor,” 2019, https:​//​dogruhaber​.com​.tr​/haber​/627785​-marasli​-istanbul​-sozlesmesi​-ve​-6284​-sayili​ -yasa​-aileyi​-korumuyor; Murat Yetkin, “The Istanbul Convention vs. an Islamist Congregation?” July 9, 2020, https:​//​yetkinreport​.com​/en​/2020​/07​/09​/the​-istanbul​ -convention​-vs​-an​-islamist​-congregation​/; “Istanbul Convention Did Not Bring Respect for Women’s Rights: Erdoğan,” Duvar English, April 14, 2021, https:​//​www​ .duvarenglish​.com​/istanbul​-convention​-did​-not​-bring​-respect​-for​-womens​-rights​ -erdogan​-news​-57089. 54. For a detailed discussion on the debates around the Istanbul Convention, see Marella Bodur Ün and  Harun Arıkan, “Europeanization and De-Europeanization of Turkey’s Gender Equality Policy: The Case of the Istanbul Convention,” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 60, no. 4 (2022): 945–62. 55. Alev Özkazanç, “The New Episode of Anti-gender Politics in Turkey,” LSE Department of Gender Studies Blog Posts, May 20, 2019, https:​//​blogs​.lse​.ac​.uk​/ gender​/2019​/05​/20​/new​-episode​-anti​-gender​-turkey​/. 56. See Marella Bodur Ün, “Contestation of the Global Norm against Violence against Women in Turkey,” Turkish Studies, published online April 2, 2023, 12. 57. See Maraşlı, “Erkeğe Şiddete Dur De!” and “Kadınları İstanbul Sözleşmesi Öldürüyor!” 58. Bodur Ün, “Contestation of the Global Norm against Violence against Women in Turkey,” 12. 59. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 134–39. 60. Ibid, 137. 61. Ibid, 137. 62. Ibid, 214; for a detailed discussion on emancipatory and life politics see Ibid, 209–31. 63. Ibid, 157. 64. Şirin Tekeli, “Emergence of the New Feminist Movement in Turkey,” in The New Women’s Movement, edited by Drude Dahlerup (London: Sage, 1986), 179–99; Yeşim Arat, “Toward a Democratic Society: The Women’s Movement in Turkey in the 1980s,” Women’s Studies International Forum 17, no. 2–3 (1994): 241–48; Marella Bodur, Modernity, Social Movements and Democracy: Feminist Movements in Post-1980 Turkey, unpublished PhD thesis, (Ottawa: Carleton University, 2005). 65. The women’s movement was not homogeneous as there were different women’s groups, advocating different visions of gender equality throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Women wearing the türban (headscarf) stressed the different, feminine

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nature of women, but also demanded to take part in all spheres of life on an equal basis with other actors. Arguing that they were faced with the double oppression of gender and ethnicity, Kurdish women’s groups called on Turkish feminists and state agencies to adopt an intersectional approach in their struggles for gender equality. For a detailed analysis, see Bodur, Modernity, Social Movements and Democracy, chapters 4, 5, and 6. 66. Bodur, Modernity, Social Movements and Democracy, 192–94, 196. 67. See https:​//​www​.womenlobby​.org​/EWL​-Coordination​-in​-Turkey​?lang​=en. 68. GREVIO (Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence), Baseline Evaluation Report Turkey, 2018, https:​//​rm​.coe​.int​/eng​ -grevio​-report​-turquie​/16808e5283, 29–30. 69. Reuters, “Thousands Protest at Turkey Anti-abortion Law Plan,” June 3, 2012, https:​//​www​.reuters​.com​/article​/us​-turkey​-abortion​-idUSBRE85207520120603. 70. Bodur Ün, “Contesting Global Gender Equality Norms,” 840–41. 71. Istanbul Convention Monitoring Platform, Press Release, “Turkey’s Women and LGBTI Organizations Are Excluded from Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence,” December 29, 2014, http:​//​www​.morcati​.org​.tr​/tr​/23​-news​/288​-turkey​-s​-women​-and​-lgbti​ -organizations​-are​-excluded​-from​-council​-of​-europe​-s​-convention​-on​-preventing​ -and​-combating​-violence​-against​-women​-and​-domestic​-violence. 72. Istanbul Convention Monitoring Platform on Turkey, “Shadow NGO Report on Turkey’s First Report on Legislative and Other Measure Giving Effect to the Provisions of the Istanbul Convention,” September 2017, https:​//​rm​.coe​.int​/turkey​-shadow​ -report​-2​/16807441a1, 17. 73. Bodur Ün, “Contesting Global Gender Equality Norms,” 844. 74. Asuman Özgür-Keysan and Zelal Özdemir, “Civil Society and State Relations in Turkey: Opposing Trajectories of Two Islamist Women’s Civil Society Organizations,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 26, no. 3 (2020): 301–25. 75. For a detailed analysis, see Selin Çağatay, “Women’s Coalitions beyond the Laicism-Islamism Divide in Turkey: Towards an Inclusive Struggle for Gender Equality?” Social Inclusion 6, no. 4 (2018): 48–58. 76. See, for instance, Istanbul Convention Monitoring Platform on Turkey, “Shadow NGO Report”; The Executive Committee on NGO Forum for CEDAW, “Updated Shadow Report on the 8th Periodic Review of Turkey,” June 2022, https:​ //​wwhr​.org​/wp​-content​/uploads​/2022​/02​/CSO​-Shadow​-Report​-on​-Turkey​-for​-the​ -82nd​-Review​-Session​-of​-CEDAW​_​-updated​-in​-2022​.pdf. 77. The Executive Committee on NGO Forum for CEDAW, “Updated Shadow Report,” 4; Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation, “Information Note on the IV. National Action Plan for Fighting Violence against Women (2021–2025),” September 6, 2021, https:​//​en​.morcati​.org​.tr​/news​/information​-note​-on​-the​-iv​-national​ -action​-plan​-for​-fighting​-violence​-against​-women​-2021​-2025​/; Women for Women’s Human Rights—New Ways, “Brief Note on the 4th National Action Plan on Combating Violence Against Women,” September 20, 2021, https:​//​wwhr​.org​/brief​-note​-on​ -the​-4th​-national​-action​-plan​-on​-combating​-violence​-against​-women​/.



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78. See, for instance, Women for Women’s Human Rights—New Ways, “Brief Note.” 79. Istanbul Convention Monitoring Platform on Turkey, “Shadow NGO Report,” 9–11. 80. Institute of Population Studies (IPS), Domestic Violence Against Women in Turkey, Hacettepe University, http:​//​www​.hips​.hacettepe​.edu​.tr​/ingilizceozetraporweb​ .pdf, 7. 81. We Will Stop Femicides Platform, Annual Report of 2022, https:​//​kadinci​na​ yet​lerinidurduracagiz​.net​/veriler​/3041​/we​-will​-stop​-femicides​-platform​-2022​-annual​ -report. 82. We Will Stop Femicides Platform, Annual Report of 2022. 83. Özgecan Aslan, a twenty-year-old university student, was murdered by a minibus driver in Mersin in February 2015, while resisting attempted rape. This event led to nationwide protests against the government. 84. Bianet, “We Will Stop Femicides Platform Faces Closure for Immoral Activities,” April 13, 2022, https:​//​bianet​.org​/english​/women​/260418​-we​-will​-stop​ -feminicides​-platform​-faces​-closure​-for​-immoral​-activities. 85. Bianet, “Women Take to Streets all around Turkey in Support of Istanbul Convention,” August 5, 2020, http:​//​bianet​.org​/english​/women​/228536​-women​ -take​-to​-streets​-all​-around​-turkey​-in​-support​-of​-istanbul​-convention. Also see http:​//​ kadinkoalisyonu​.org​/haber​/the​-istanbul​-convention​-is​-a​-guarantee​-for​-womens​-and​ -lgbti​-human​-rights​-the​-istanbul​-convention​-saves​-lives​/. 86. Communications Directorate of the Presidency, “Statement Regarding Türkiye’s Withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention,” March 23, 2021, https:​//​www​ .iletisim​.gov​.tr​/english​/haberler​/detay​/statement​-regarding​-turkeys​-withdrawal​-from​ -the​-istanbul​-convention. 87. EŞİK. “İstanbul Sözleşmesi ile ilgili Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kararı Yok Hükmündedir, Sözleşme Yürürlüktedir,” March 20, 2021, https:​//​esikplatform​.net​/sozlesme​ -yururluktedir​/. 88. Bianet, “Women Take to Streets.” 89. Bianet, “Council of State Prosecutor once again Demands Annulment of İstanbul Convention Decree,” June 8, 2022, https:​//​m​.bianet​.org​/english​/women​ /263031​-council​-of​-state​-prosecutor​-once​-again​-demands​-annulment​-of​-istanbul​ -convention​-decree. 90. Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” inn Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992). 91. Christine L. Ogan and Ozen Bas, “Use of Social Media in the Struggle Surrounding Violence against Turkish Women,” International Journal of Communication 14 (2020): 5556–74. 92. Dilay Yalçın, “Activists in Turkey Hail Convictions in Femicide Case,” BBC, December 5, 2019, https:​//​www​.bbc​.com​/news​/world​-50673700. 93. Duvar English, “Murder of 27 Years Old Fuels Turkey’s Feminist Rebellion: Don’t Think about Touching Istanbul Convention,” July 22, 2020, https:​ //​ www​

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.duvarenglish​.com​/human​-rights​/2020​/07​/22​/murder​-of​-27​-year​-old​-fuels​-turkeys​ -feminist​-rebellion​-dont​-think​-about​-touching​-istanbul​-convention. 94. Tuğçe Özbiçer, “Femicide in Turkey is Rising: If you posted the #ChallengeAccepted Trend, You Need to Amplify the Turkish Women Who Started It,” The Independent, August 6, 2020, https:​//​www​.independent​.co​.uk​/voices​/turkey​-femicide​ -protests​-challenge​-accepted​-pinar​-gultekin​-izmir​-a9656646​.html. 95. See, for instance, Kaitlynn Mendes, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller, Digital Feminist Activism Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 96. Bianet, “Müslüman LGBT+lar Vardır: Havle Kadın Derneği’nden Linçlere Karşı Dayanışma Çağrısı,” January 10, 2023, https:​//​bianet​.org​/kadin​/toplumsal​ -cinsiyet​/272629​-havle​-kadin​-dernegi​-nden​-linclere​-karsi​-dayanisma​-cagrisi. 97. The perception of the women’s movement as an elitist movement could be one of the reasons why the movement failed to become a mass movement in the 1990s. See Bodur, Modernity, Social Movements and Democracy, 201–02. 98. Butler, “What Threat?” 6. 99. Bodur Ün and Arıkan, “Europeanization and De-Europeanization of Turkey’s Gender Equality Policy.” 100. Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere.”

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Maraşlı, Sema. “Erkeğe Şiddete Dur De!” Cocukaile, November 27, 2016. www​ .cocukaile​.net​/erkegesiddete​-dur​-de​/ Mayer, Stefanie, and Sauer. Birgit. “‘Gender Ideology’ in Austria: Coalitions around an Empty Signifier.” In Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, edited by Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, 23–40. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Ogan, Christine L.. and Bas, Ozen. “Use of Social Media in the Struggle Surrounding Violence against Turkish Women.” International Journal of Communication 14 (2020): 5556–74. Özbiçer, Tuğçe. “Femicide in Turkey is Rising: If you posted the #ChallengeAccepted Trend, You Need to Amplify the Turkish Women Who Started It.” The Independent, August 6, 2020. https:​//​www​.independent​.co​.uk​/voices​/turkey​-femicide​-protests​ -challenge​-accepted​-pinar​-gultekin​-izmir​-a9656646​.html Özgür-Keysan, Asuman, and Özdemir, Zelal. “Civil Society and State Relations in Turkey: Opposing Trajectories of Two Islamist Women’s Civil Society Organizations.” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 26, no. 3 (2020): 301–25. Özkazanç, Alev. “The New Episode of Anti-gender Politics in Turkey.” LSE Department of Gender Studies Blog Posts, May 20, 2019. https:​//​blogs​.lse​.ac​.uk​/ gender​/2019​/05​/20​/new​-episode​-anti​-gender​-turkey​/ Paternotte, David, and Kuhar, Roman. “Disentangling and Locating the ‘Global Right’: Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe.” Politics and Governance 6, no. 3 (2018): 6–19. Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation. “Information Note on the IV. National Action Plan for Fighting Violence against Women (2021–2025).” September 6, 2021. https:​//​en​.morcati​.org​.tr​/news​/information​-note​-on​-the​-iv​-national​-action​ -plan​-for​-fighting​-violence​-against​-women​-2021​-2025​/ Reuters. “Thousands Protest at Turkey Anti-abortion Law Plan.” June 3, 2012. https:​ //​www​.reuters​.com​/article​/us​-turkey​-abortion​-idUSBRE85207520120603 Rumelili, Bahar. “Identity and De-securitization: The Pitfalls of Conflating Ontological and Physical Security.” Journal of International Relations and Development 18 (2015): 52–74. “Sema Maraşlı: Kadınları İstanbul Sözleşmesi Öldürüyor!” August 24, 2019. https:​ //​www​.risalehaber​.com​/sema​-marasli​-kadinlari​-istanbul​-sozlesmesi​-olduruyor​ -359856h​.htm Shevtsova, Maryna. “Religion, Nation, State, and Anti-Gender Politics in Georgia and Ukraine.” Problems of Post-Communism 70, no. 2 (2023): 163–74. Smith, Helena. “Turkey Split by Plan to Criminalise Adultery.” The Guardian, September 5, 2004. https:​//​www​.theguardian​.com​/world​/2004​/sep​/06​/turkey​ .helena​smith T24. “Saadet Partisi lideri Temel Karamollaoğlu: İstanbul Sözleşmesi Cinsiyeti Ortadan Kaldırmak İstiyor.” July 25, 2020. https:​//​t24​.com​.tr​/haber​/saadet​-partisi​ -genel​ - baskani​ - temel​ - karamollaoglu​ - istanbul​ - sozlesmesi​ - cinsiyeti​ - ortadan​ -kaldirmak​-istiyor​,892949 Tekeli, Şirin. “Emergence of the New Feminist Movement in Turkey.” In The New Women’s Movement, edited by Drude Dahlerup, 179–99. London: Sage, 1986.



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The Executive Committee on NGO Forum for CEDAW. “Updated Shadow Report on the 8th Periodic Review of Turkey.” June 2022. https:​//​wwhr​.org​/wp​-content​ /uploads​/2022​/02​/CSO​-Shadow​-Report​-on​-Turkey​-for​-the​-82nd​-Review​-Session​ -of​-CEDAW​_​-updated​-in​-2022​.pdf We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Annual Report of 2022. https:​//​ kadincinayetlerinidurduracagiz​.net​/veriler​/3041​/we​-will​-stop​-femicides​-platform​ -2022​-annual​-report Wilkinson, Annie. “Gender as Death Threat to the Family: How the ‘Security Frame’ Shapes Anti-gender Activism in Mexico.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23, no. 4 (2021): 535–57. World Economic Forum. Gender Gap Report 22. July 2022. https:​//​www3​.weforum​ .org​/docs​/WEF​_GGGR​_2022​.pdf Women for Women’s Human Rights—New Ways. “Brief Note on the 4th National Action Plan on Combating Violence Against Women.” September 20, 2021. https:​ //​wwhr​.org​/brief​-note​-on​-the​-4th​-national​-action​-plan​-on​-combating​-violence​ -against​-women​/ Yabancı, Bilge. “Populism as the Problem Child of Democracy: The AKP’s Enduring Appeal and Use of Meso-level Actors.” Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16, no. 4 (2016): 591–617. Yalçın, Dilay. “Activists in Turkey Hail Convictions in Femicide Case.” BBC, December 5, 2019. https:​//​www​.bbc​.com​/news​/world​-50673700 Yazıcı, Berna. “The Return to the Family: Welfare, State, and Politics of the Family in Turkey.” Anthropological Quarterly 85, no. 1 (2012): 103–40. Yetkin, Murat. “The Istanbul Convention vs. an Islamist Congregation?” July 9, 2020. https:​//​yetkinreport​.com​/en​/2020​/07​/09​/the​-istanbul​-convention​-vs​-an​-islamist​ -congregation​/ Yılmaz, Zafer. “‘Strengthening the Family’ Policies in Turkey: Managing the Social Question and Armoring Conservative–Neoliberal Populism.” Turkish Studies 16, no. 3 (2015): 371–90.

‌‌‌C hapter Five

Neoliberalism and Individual Insecurities in Turkey‌‌ Neoliberal Subjects between Popular Resistance and Resilience Rasim Özgür Dönmez

In the last two decades, the world has witnessed many earth-shaking political and social protests that have had devastating effects on the entire global community. These include the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, anti-vaccine protests, etc. Although there are local dynamics behind all these protests, many scholars attribute their reasons to neoliberalism and its discontents.1 Slovaj Žižek referred to this period as “living in the end times,” indicating four paramount dynamics resulting in this period: “the worldwide ecological crisis, imbalances within the economic system, the biogenetic revolution and exploding social divisions.”2 The neoliberal transformation of the global economic political system has led to increasing inequality and declining resilience resulting from growing poverty. The neoliberal subjects face increasingly conditional employment and descending pressure on wages. Hence, states compete to attract capital by liberalizing private activities (e.g., attracting material and financial investments at the expense of increasing climate-related risks). In addition, neoliberalism hinders social cohesion and pushes individuals into loneliness.3 In the “end times,” people in the middle class, to a great extent, lose their job security, which makes their situation precarious. This situation creates global insecurities, leading to vulnerabilities in the subjects. These conditions sometimes lead neoliberal subjects to stay in resilience and oblige them to engage in resistance against their governments, conglomerates, and 151

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international organizations. This fact leads us to ask: What is it that makes these neoliberal selves choose resistance/resilience? What motivates neoliberal subjects to initiate either resilience or resistance? In what conditions do they choose resistance and resilience? Many studies have evaluated the subject from different angles. The first category of studies focuses on the global dynamics of these protests, and they do not answer how and why neoliberalism forces subjects to participate in these protests. In other words, these studies fail to address the psycho-political perspectives of subjects in relation to the global neoliberal system which led them to choose resistance or resilience—or both—against it. Many studies about the rationale behind the Arab Spring can be given as an example.4 There is a second category that tries to fill this gap using social movement studies.5 However, this category does not sufficiently explain the psycho-political perspective with regard to global systemic analysis, because this perspective evaluates the subject from the collective identity and social movement perspectives and, to a great extent, ignores the individual perspective. The third category, the political theory perspective, closes this gap substantially and strongly connects individual relations with the neoliberal global world. For example, David Chandler and Julian Reid’s groundbreaking study The Neo-liberal Subject: Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability is a good example of this perspective. The dialogues of these two scholars depict a fabulous framework for how neoliberal subjects set up a relationship with neoliberalism.6 The book displays how the neoliberal subject becomes vulnerable and adapts itself through resilience and adaptation in the neoliberal system. However, the study is eurocentric and does not explain the non-Western world. By addressing these points, this study evaluates how neoliberalism and globalization left the neoliberal subject insecure and obliged it to either persist in resilience or choose to participate in popular resistance. In this study, neoliberal subject indicates the middle class without excluding subclasses, and the study defines popular resistance as the participation of all possible sectors of society, without restricting it to organized groups or political parties. This study is patterned on Lacan’s concepts of “desire” and “jouissance” in order to show how the neoliberal subject is isolated both by itself and the neoliberal system. The concept shows how the neoliberal subject is prevented from carrying out systematic and substantial resistance against the system, and how it tries—but is not able to—emancipate from it. The study is also grounded in Nick Montgomery and Carla Bergman’s concept of “Joyful Militancy,” borrowed from Spinoza to display to the readers how the ideal type of emancipation should be executed for the neoliberal self.7 In this vein, the study takes the Gezi Park protests as a case to show the rationale behind the participation of the neoliberal self in this political mobilization. It tries to



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understand the effects of neoliberalism on neoliberal subjects which oblige them to participate in these political mobilizations. In this context, this study comprises three sections. The first section evaluates the relationship between neoliberalism and the neoliberal subject in order to understand how neoliberalism creates the feeling of insecurity. The second section depicts how neoliberal individuals respond to these effects and what makes neoliberal individuals participate in popular resistance. The last section analyzes the subject by a case study on the 2013 Gezi Park protests. THE ENDLESS INSECURITY OF THE NEOLIBERAL SUBJECT In political economy, neoliberalism is associated with free market capitalism, in which the subject’s welfare and happiness can progress by the improvement of entrepreneurial freedoms guaranteed by a legal framework, such as private property rights, individual liberty, etc. Hence, the concept refers to progress of “consumer sovereignty” and a doctrine signifying the utilization of “market-based techniques” to reach political and social goals.8 As Chandler and Reid remark:9 It is about the growth of “consumer sovereignty” and the shift from ideological political contestation to the use of market-based tools and techniques to achieve political and social goals or the rationalization of the market as the “site of truth.”

In this context, neoliberalism—like its ancestor, classical liberalism, born from the Enlightenment philosophy—promises subjects progress, prosperity, and ongoing security in their lives.10 However, this perspective ignores the relationship between the market and human subjectivity. Chandler and Reid propose to explain neoliberalism from the perspective of a theory and practice of subjectivity. This perspective stems from Foucault’s understanding of neoliberalism. These two scholars state that a student of politics cannot understand how neoliberalism achieves hegemonic power as a socioeconomic program without understanding how it problematizes human subjectivity. They criticize neoliberalism’s idealization of the liberal subject, identifying it with the ideal character: Homo economicus, envisioned as a subject having an exceptional capability for reason and knowledge which empowers it to ensure power over nature in order to provide security and sovereignty.11 This study also problematizes the Homo economicus figure and argues that neoliberalism fundamentally rejects this figure, in practice, by restructuring market and capital over the liberal subject

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and daily life. However, the rest of the section answers the question: How, and by which mechanisms, does neoliberalism dominate the neoliberal subject and make it vulnerable? Neoliberalism and Economization of Daily Life Many scholars such as Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi perceive liberalism as both a political ideology and a regime of governance. However, Foucault distanced himself from these thinkers by demonstrating that neoliberalism is more than a political ideology or a regime of governance. Rather, he believes that neoliberalism is “the economization of state and society” by encompassing all units of state and society in the neoliberal order.12 In classical liberalism, the market has natural mechanisms and codes within itself that should be obeyed and which go beyond the capacity of governments. These mechanisms help subjects to maximize their values. In this sense, liberalism distinguishes the economic sphere from the political sphere. While the economic sphere comprises the pursuit of individual interests—the economic ones—the political sphere protects individual rights and the common good.13 Unlike classical liberalism, neoliberalism does not distinguish between politics and economics. The market is the ultimate apparatus to foster human progress; thus it should be applied to other spheres, such as the private and political spheres. In this sense, neoliberalism uses more efficient technology of power by which subjects subordinate themselves. Different than disciplinary power understanding, neoliberalism does not aim to forbid or obstruct. Rather, it operates itself by pleasing and satisfying.14 Neoliberalism also perceives the market as a non-natural and delicate sphere, patterned on competition, requiring political interference to preserve its existence. This process leads to the economization of state and society by implanting the logic of the market to all spheres of life.15 This perspective leads to a “strong, interventionist and entrepreneurial”16 state whose primary mission is to preserve this system by hampering welfare state practices, eroding social security of labors, and encouraging fierce competition, at the same time seeking to activate, motivate, and optimize both political and economic systems.17 The reflection of this neoliberal conversion is that risk cannot be confined to the market. They become common alignments of individuals and states.18 Mavelli puts it like this: A central implication of this neoliberal transformation is that investments, speculations and risks are no longer confined to the market but become general orientations of individuals and states alike. Neoliberalism can thus be



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understood as a “principle of formalization” that endangers the economization of individuals, societies and states.19

Moreover, neoliberalism empowers and institutionalizes markets by creating a subjectivity and inculcating neoliberal discourses of risk and security in the subjects. It constitutes society by depicting an unknown and unsecure world and prevents neoliberal subjects from being able to live without bearing risk and insecurity.20 This form of governmentality hinders the social security duties of the state and attributes responsibility to neoliberal subjects to protect themselves from uncertainty and risks. This form of governmentality is branded as Empire by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt.21 For these scholars, the global market and global paths of production have emerged into a global political and economic order leading to a new structure of rule. In this vein, empire is the political subject that effectually adjusts these global economic, political, and social exchanges, and a new global form of sovereignty emerges “composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under single logic of rule.”22 These scholars reinforce their perspective by the term “Multitude.”23 In this study, the scholars envisage the proletariat as a “heterogeneous web of workers, migrants, social movements, and non-governmental organisations potentially all the diverse figures of social production, the living alternative that grows within Empire.”24 According to this perspective, global capitalism and neoliberalism, to a great extent, erode the social rights of neoliberal subjects and standardize them under the status of precariat. In other words, neoliberal subjects live under a dictatorship of capital.25 However, neither Negri nor Hardt has answered how neoliberalism tries to subordinate neoliberal subjects from the psycho-political perspective at the individual level. In this context, neoliberal capitalism curbs the subject’s freedom by the totalization of labor.26 Han defines freedom by referring to Marx: denying the liberal notion of individual freedom and perceiving it as a concept of exploitation. Thus, the neoliberal subject is the entrepreneur of its own self and is not able to set up relationships with others without (material) purpose.27 For Han, the neoliberal self does not even know purpose-free friendship, and being free means being among friends. Han remarks, “‘Freedom’ and ‘friendship’ have the same root in Indo-European languages. Fundamentally, freedom signifies a relationship. A real feeling of freedom occurs only in a fruitful relationship—when being with others brings happiness.”28 On the contrary, many Marxist thinkers define freedom as successful relationships and self-realization with others. Individual freedom represented under “Free Competition”—patterned on the notion of individual freedom— is a deception for these thinkers, in the sense that capital is continuously

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reproduced by means of the free competition of individuals.29 Hence, capital curbs human freedom. Han remarks: Capital grows inasmuch as people engage in free competition. Hereby, individual freedom amounts to servitude in as much as Capital lays hold of it and uses it for its own propagation. That is, Capital exploits individual freedom in order to breed: “It is not the individuals who are set free by free competition; it is, rather, capital which is set free.”30

In short, the neoliberal regime leads to complete isolation and ignores individual freedom by prioritizing the prominence of capital over the neoliberal subject. Nick Montgomery and Carla Bergman’s interesting study Joyful Militancy supports Han’s perspective of Marxist freedom through the lens of Spinoza’s conceptualization of joy.31 Spinoza thinks that the cardinal element in life is to be able to realize new things with others, that people become more powerful and alive when they are united with other.32 For this scholar, joy does not mean happiness; rather, it is an effort to transform life with others. Montgomery and Bergman put it this way: “Spinoza’s concept of joy is not an emotion at all but an increase in one’s power to affect and be affected. It is the capacity to do and feel more. As such, it is connected to creativity and the embrace of uncertainty.”33 For the authors, the concept of joyful militancy is to create a “common notion.” Common notion, as borrowed from Spinoza, signifies being involved in the web of relationships and affections patterned on love, care, and trust. In this context, the subject’s mission is to be responsible for changing situations and others. Different than the neoliberal subject’s self-isolated singularity, joyful militancy requires active and responsible subjects who are willing to create common notions to fix the problems of capitalism.34 Based on these thinkers, we believe that neoliberalism does not allow the neoliberal subject to realize its freedom. Therefore, it leads the neoliberal subject to remain in its isolated singularity, which makes it vulnerable, feeling insecure and anxious in the face of the challenges of life. However, these thinkers do not answer why and when neoliberal individuals choose popular resistance against these threats or, conversely, resilience to them. Therefore, the next section seeks to answer this question with the help of Lacan’s theories.



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WHAT MAKES THE NEOLIBERAL SELF PARTICIPATE IN POPULAR RESISTANCE? What makes the neoliberal self participate in popular resistance? Is resistance the sole instrument of the neoliberal self for protecting its interests? What is resilience for the neoliberal self in neoliberal times, and what is its relationship with resistance? These questions should be answered in order to understand why the neoliberal self participates in dissident politics. The relationship between resistance and resilience occupies an important place in political sociology and political psychology literature. There are varying thoughts about this relationship in the literature. The first category considers that these two concepts are mutually exclusive, and they perceive resilience as the product of neoliberalism.35 For Foucault and his followers, resilience is the common element of neoliberalism. For example, Jonathan Joseph argues that governmental policies of resilience help states to relinquish the burden of responsibility in crises and transfer it to neoliberal subjects.36 The second category criticizes this perspective for confining resilience to solely neoliberalism. The scholars in this category argue that resilience can be an instrument for a societal reaction to the conditions created by neoliberalism. In fact, it is a means for the neoliberal self to deal with uncertainty and perception of risk.37 For example, Jessica Schmidt argues that resilience does not inevitably stem from neoliberalism. On the contrary, it can be an answer to the discontent of neoliberalism.38 Hall and Lamont also argue that resilience can be improved and reinforced as a societal reply to the problems exacerbated by neoliberalism.39 The last category disagrees with the previous two categories and perceives resilience and resistance as binary concepts engaging in common assistance. For example, Scott expresses this: “there will be moments in the life of any resistance movements where overt resistance is impossible. During these times, resilience becomes essential to preserve resistance.”40 All of these perspectives are true, to an extent, for different contexts. However, they do not solely answer the question of how the individual choices—to participate in popular resistance and to stay in resilience—are related. In other words, it does not explain the psycho-political mechanism of how the individual makes the choice between staying in resilience and to participating in popular resistance. In order to answer this question, we will mobilize Lacan’s terminologies of “desire” and “jouissance” (enjoyment).

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Desire, “Jouissance,” Emancipation, and the Neoliberal Self For many theorists, an individual or society can either be resilient or resistant. However, this proposition is problematic in the sense that these two concepts have a symbiotic relationship. In order to solve this equation, we have to understand what emancipation refers to in neoliberalism, because the neoliberal self’s choice between popular resistance and resilience resides in the concept of emancipation. The meaning of emancipation, for Lacan, gives us a strong clue to understand this complex mechanism. The enlightenment notion of emancipation refers to freedom from oppression and collective political struggle against oppressors.41 The Frankfurt school transforms this definition and reformulates it as the “superego demand to enjoy, to maximize the fulfilment of private desire.”42 Here, enjoyment became the paramount factor in the emancipation of the self. The Frankfurt school’s notion of emancipation, later barrowed by Lacan, signifies the move from collective emancipation to “equality to a private and individualized affair.”43 In other words, degree of enjoyment (jouissance) is the cardinal element of emancipation for Lacan. For Jacques Lacan, subjects are motivated by a “lost object,” which evokes desire but always remains out of reach. Enjoyment signified by a lost object can only exist when it is lost, because subjects lose their desiring fantasy when the object is attainable.44 In other words, loss produces further excitation, leading to enjoyment. The subject must agonize to reach enjoyment, rather than getting pleasure from it.45 According to Swyngedouw, loss generates excitement and “gives the subject something for which to strive, represents the key to the politics of enjoyment.”46 In this regard, neoliberalism provides enjoyment for subjects and promises to invent new ways to do so. However, enjoyment cannot be fully satisfied through the object-cause of desire relationship—what Lacan calls “object a.”47 By applying it to neoliberalism, Žižek and others state that neoliberalism provides to subjects a fantasy that the free market and individualization will deliver enjoyment to subjects on the sole condition that individuals should be responsible for its realization. Unlike the promises of this phantasy, the desire for enjoyment stems from a primordial lack that can never be fully satisfied.48 In this framework, the question of why the neoliberal subject stays in resilience should be asked. Although the direct answer is that the feeling of insecurity neoliberalism always provides—set in motion via primordial lack—promises to deliver enjoyment and feeds the hopes of the subjects. The neoliberal self who remains isolated copes with challenges stemming from neoliberalism by hoping to realize its enjoyment in the future. In other words, the subjects believe that the system can still answer their needs of



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enjoyment in the future. They may carry out resilient strategies. For example, a neoliberal subject can quit institutional working life and stay in a caravan by working part-time jobs. This example shows the emancipation effort of the neoliberal subject from the consumption culture and, at the same time, the feeling of insecurity. Although this seems a resilient political action against neoliberalism, the neoliberal self cannot escape working and paying the bills. As explained earlier, these resilience strategies are generally the neoliberal subject’s singularized efforts stemming from feelings of insecurity rather than organized and planned strategies of the subjects, and unfortunately these strategies’ main aims are the utilization of the self rather than developing the community or society. In other words, they are, to a great extent, egoistic actions rather than altruistic ones. In this regard, neoliberal subjects cannot escape from the slave position in terms of the Hegelian Master-Slave dichotomy, in which they are not able to create a collective consciousness and habitus by entirely breaking with the neoliberal system.49 Recalling Montgomery and Bergman, these actions are not fully joyful strategies, and as such, they are doomed to fail against neoliberal capitalism. A critique can be made to my propositions by the role of the internet in resilience strategies. Neoliberal subjects should not necessarily find solid communities; rather, they can form visual groups via the internet. This can be a somewhat just critique. However, many of these groups do not reflect Spinoza’s understanding of joyful militancy, which aims to create “common notions” patterned on collective efforts to transform life with others. On the contrary, they are more individualistic—egoistic—demands.50 Permanent and solid resilience strategies cannot be realized if the neoliberal self cannot set up organized and institutional opposition. Silently quitting a job, living in a caravan, and finding remote jobs (not everyone is lucky enough to find them) cannot help the neoliberal self to afford health insurance. What we argue here is not that resilience is the product of neoliberalism. We argue that resilience strategies—that the neoliberal self’s efforts to cope with obstacles by their isolated singularities—reproduce neoliberalism. Resilience, in this form, seems to us an effort to escape from the neoliberal self’s vulnerability and to continue to seek jouissance. Although some of these strategies’ results are disappointing for the subjects, their previous conditions were more disturbing and prevented them from seeking their enjoyment.51 Arriving at this point, we should ask what drives the neoliberal subject to participate in popular resistance such as Occupy Wall Street or the Yellow Jackets Protests in France? The similar psycho-politics conditions—stemming from a feeling of insecurity—are valid for the popular uprisings. An interesting article by Alexander Langenkamp on the relationship between political participation and loneliness across Europe can give us a clue about

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the neoliberal subject’s participation in popular uprisings. Langenkamp argues that the relationship between loneliness and political participation “lies on the proposition of to which political actions reinforce sustained social interactions.”52 He chooses five political acts in the article: “a) reported voting behavior, b) signing petitions, c) contacting politicians, d) being a member of a political organization, and e) participating in demonstrations.”53 Alexander Langenkamp finds that loneliness is most strongly correlated with joining a demonstration. Although this gives us a strong clue about the neoliberal subject’s attitude toward popular resistance, this study will go further in order to analyze the psycho-political motivations.54 Lagenkamp’s study shows us that the neoliberal subject does not aim to create joyful strategies; rather, it chooses to interact with other subjects in relatively short moments, such as participating in popular resistance. Žižek’s important question sheds light on the neoliberal subject’s attitude in popular resistance: “What new positive order should replace the old one the day after, when the sublime enthusiasm of the uprising is over?”55 He answers the question from the Lacanian perspective: Such statements display one of the great dangers the protesters are facing: the danger that they will fall in love with themselves, with the nice time they are having in the “occupied” places. Carnivals come cheap—the true test of their worth is what remains the day after, how our normal daily life will be changed.56

This answer shows us that the neoliberal subject is satisfying its own singular jouissance by participating in popular resistance, rather than recommending and ensuring the establishment of a new system (in Lacanian terms). In this vein, popular uprisings are narcissistic actions of the neoliberal subject because the subject is seeking its own desire rather than finding long-term institutional solutions. Lacan portrays this attitude as seeking a new master rather than creating achievable sociopolitical change.57 Gamze Hakverdi’s interesting book Vulnus: Kırılganlık Üzerine (Vulnus: On Vulnerability) sheds light on the vulnerable subject’s position and its resistance succinctly. When a subject becomes vulnerable for some reason, such as sickness, unemployment, etc., it defines itself by setting up a dialectical relationship with the other.58 Hence, its subjectivity is transformed according to the other; as Lacan puts it, “desire is the desire of the other.”59 This creates a new symbolic regime for the vulnerable subject, who is branded by the other as unemployed, sick, etc.; the only way for the vulnerable subject to regain its subjectivity is to eradicate this new symbolic regime. In Lacanian terms, the vulnerable subject seeks its own desire and enjoyment to reassert its subjectivity. By doing this, the vulnerable subject seeks to overcome and



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transforms itself into a mythic hero. This makes it individualistic action. As stated before, Žižek called it narcissism of the neoliberal subject.60 In this vein, the neoliberal subject’s participation in popular resistance can be defined as narcissistic individual action with the goal of recovering its feeling of insecurity, rather than a joyful transformation process. Thus, the participants do not have any systematic socioeconomic program with which to set up the new system. Lacan remarks that this situation “replaces the old master with the new one,” as observed in popular resistance cases such as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Yo Soi, etc.61 In fact, neoliberalism’s symbolic regime creates a paradoxical situation for the neoliberal subject. While it presents a desire and an objet petit for the neoliberal subject, it can, at the same time, lead to vulnerability. In this context, popular resistance signifies temporary desire, or jouissance—the destruction of the symbolic regime for the neoliberal subject. The neoliberal subject does not make a systematic critique, nor is it willing to destroy the entire neoliberal symbolic regime it resists. Therefore, these popular mobilizations do not lift the system; instead, they lead to temporary jouissance. This vicious cycle will continue until neoliberal subjects transform the system by joyful militancy. THE GEZI PARK PROTESTS: ESCAPE ATTEMPT OF THE NEOLIBERAL SELF FROM VULNERABILITY The victory of the populist conservative Justice and Development Party heralded a new era in Turkey in that the party strongly initiated a robust neoliberal program in Turkey by polarizing the society, pitting secularists against traditionalists, or the old versus the new middle classes. In this regard, the Justice and Development Party formed a power bloc with the wage-earning working classes, religious clientelist networks, and other ideological state apparatus. However, these alliances have been continuously regenerated during the party’s twenty years in power, and these regenerations have been the driving force behind the large-scale political mobilizations against the government. The Gezi Park events left a deep trace on history. Although this mobilization has been framed as government-civil society antagonism, we argue that this mobilization had political-economic dynamics rather than purely political reasons for the neoliberal self. The participants of the Gezi Movement represented the old middle classes in one way or another (secularly oriented classes: wage-earning working-class segments, professionals, university students, etc.), all of which were suffering from the insecurities of neoliberalism, and the participants’ objectives in attending the protests varied.62 While some participants attended the protests for ecological reasons, some participated to

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force the prime minister to resign from office; others had different reasons. We argue in this section that the Gezi Park protests demonstrate the neoliberal self’s attempt to escape from vulnerability. Before explaining and analyzing the Gezi Park protests, we should depict the pre-Gezi Movement period in order to understand what lies behind the protest. Pre-Gezi Period The Justice and Development Party, as the party in power, had set up a coalition against the old secular elite. The coalition was formed with liberals, the leftist liberals, some sectors of nationalists, and a transnational Islamic sect, and the party followed moderate Islam by hindering the old institutions and regenerating them to capture their power. It also followed radical neoliberal policies such as privatization, empowerment of the construction sector, etc.63 The party realized these policies by, to a great extent, excluding the old secular elite from the state and its discourses from the public spheres. In addition, the party implemented radical populist policies and demarcated its followers by prioritizing Islamic and Ottoman values and by attacking Republican values.64 This portrayal became more prominent with Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian War and its regime change efforts in international relations. This fact led to two important developments: the beginning of the distortion of the Turkish economy and the augmentation of populist policies in order to demarcate the followers of the party. In this context, the president of the period, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, verbally and implicitly attacked the founders the country: “Given that a law made by two drunken [people] is respected, why should a law that is commanded by religion be rejected by your side?”65 The president, as the leader of the conservative—or Islamist— movement, became stricter to demarcate the groups in the country. This situation divided the society into secular versus conservatives—Muslims—and made the secular circles feel stigmatized and insular. Şerif Mardin named this situation “Neighborhood Pressure.”66 The majority of the secular electorate felt excluded and stayed resilient against these policies. Gezi Park Protests The Taksim Gezi Park protest was a cornerstone for the secular bloc to transmit their energy from resilience to resistance. The protests began with indignation over the harsh intervention of authorities regarding the protests against the urban development plan for İstanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park on May



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28, 2013.67 Afterwards, protests were held across Turkey, speaking up about wide-reaching anxieties such as freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the government’s attrition of Turkey’s secularism. The protests continued for three weeks all over Turkey. Around ten thousand people were injured and twelve people died in the protests.68 Resembling its correspondents throughout the world—such as Occupy Wall Street, Yo Soi, etc.—the protestors occupied parks and squares that had symbolic meaning, as the expression of the resistance against “privatization, commercialization and securitization” of the public sphere.69 The harsh treatment of the police forces against the protestors fostered solidarity among different ideological groups. The occupation at Taksim Gezi Park grew, resulting in thousands of protesters in tents, which they organized into a small public sphere by forming a library, theater, etc. After the Gezi Park camp was evacuated by the police on June 15, protesters began to meet in other parks all around Turkey and organized public forums discussing what they would do to keep these groups together and to form a new public sphere in parks separate from the general public sphere. The government retreated to demolish Gezi Park and reestablished military barracks, as had been located on Gezi Park in the Ottoman period. Related to our topic, we should ask two questions: Why did protestors attend Taksim Gezi Park protests, and did they get what they demanded? There are two perspectives on the answer to the first question. The first one is that the Gezi Park protests were perceived as an uprising of secular classes who felt stigmatized by the public and the state sphere.70 Although this cultural perspective does, to an extent, explain the dynamics of the protests, it ignores the socioeconomic rationales behind the scenes. This fact brings us to the second point. Efe Can Gürcan and Efe Peker’s interesting study reveals that the Gezi Park protests cannot be confined to a secularism uprising; it was, to a great extent, comprised of members of the wage-earning class, namely, service sector employees and the educated youth which can be framed as precariat.71 In other words, the protestors came from socioeconomic sectors of the society that were feeling insecure. As we see it, these two perspectives are intermingled with each other, and these protests were, to a great extent, run by a segment of the secular wage-earning class and the educated youth. The Gezi Park protest was executed for the sake of equal citizenship, in terms of getting both economic and political status. Our second question was whether the neoliberal subjects—the protestors—got what they had demanded. When we look at the interviews of the protestors, we see that they had varying demands, such as protecting trees in Gezi Park, wanting to remove the government from office, giving support to the protestors, etc. When we look at the demands more concretely, we see that

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the participants did not have a systematic problem with neoliberalism; their destruction of the symbolic regime was temporary—or desire, in Lacanian terms—in its nature. The participants attended the Gezi Park mobilization seeking their singularized joussiance (enjoyment) or lost objects—not to create joyful militancy. For example, one of the young males attending the protests explained his rationale for participation in the protest: “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did the best thing. His attitude united us.”72 On the other hand, some of the participants attended the protests to protect Gezi Park and its habitat, and some just attended the protest to give support to the opposition.73 In other words, the participants did not have a coherent rationale in attending the protest, thus they could not create a “common notion”—joyful militancy. This rendered their participation narcissistic individual action. The only common notion for the protestors was to stop authoritarian and exclusionary policies. Some of them demanded that the president of the period be forced to resign from his seat.74 The protestors tried to achieve this by creating solidarity with the other sectors of the society, and setting up joyful strategies, such as organizing forums in the parks, which survived for a short period of time. Here, these forums did not advance the radical transformation of the system, due to the socioeconomic conditions and diverse interests of the participants in the forums. More importantly, the participants did not have the problem of changing the neoliberal system in the country. What they demanded was to utilize the benefits of the system more; as Lacan puts it, to replace the old master with the new one.75 In this context, we can make a diagnosis that the neoliberal self’s actions in the Gezi Park protests are the narcissistic motivated actions of the neoliberal self that sought its desire, namely, toppling former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (or at least making him regret his policies). Therefore, the neoliberal self was not able to establish sustainable solidarity with the other neoliberal selves that would have been necessary to transform the protests into a joyful act. Žižek puts it like this: It is at this crucial point that we encounter the fatal weakness of the protests: they express an authentic rage which is not able to transform itself into a minimal positive program of socio-political change. They express a spirit of revolt without a revolution.76

When we get a glimpse of the past from the moment, the party has strongly implemented the neoliberal policies all over the country. It has continued the construction boom and implemented neoliberal urban planning all over the country. Neoliberal policies and the deteriorating economic conditions have distorted the socioeconomic conditions of large sectors of society, including wage-earning class fractions and educated youth.



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In sum, the Gezi Park protests cannot be transformed into a joyful act, and the protestors cannot establish a stable and long-lasting ecosystem. They could not prevent neoliberal authoritarianism, and these protests could not go beyond to searching for a new master. As the famous anti-capitalist dissident Islamist İhsan Eli Açık explains, “the Gezi Park protests were just the breaking of the AKP’s power spell, not much more than that.”77 CONCLUSION This study answers the question of why a neoliberal subject prefers resilience and/or popular resistance, and it takes the Gezi Park protests as a case. It argues that neoliberalism, a political ideology and a regime of governance, prioritizes the market and market values over individuals (neoliberal subjects) and individual freedoms. This perspective of neoliberalism is accompanied by a strong entrepreneur state in charge of preserving the socioeconomic system by hindering welfare practices, such as hampering the social security duties of the state. This leads to risk and ontological insecurity for the neoliberal self. This situation leads us to ask what emancipation refers to for the neoliberal self to escape from the ontological insecurity. This is different from the Enlightenment notion of emancipation indicating freedom from oppression through collective political struggle against oppressors. The Frankfurt School’s formulation of emancipation as the “superego’s demand to enjoy to maximize fulfilment of private desire”78 to a great extent fits to neoliberal times. Lacan’s notion of emancipation follows the root of the Frankfurt School indicating to get enjoyment (jouissance). In this context, neoliberalism provides subjects a fantasy in which the free market, being an individual, and so on bring them enjoyment in a condition that neoliberal subjects should be responsible for its realization. However, the desire for enjoyment always resides in a primordial lack that can never be fully satisfied.79 This statement gives the first answer for our question, the reason for staying resilient for the neoliberal subject. Neoliberalism always offers neoliberal subjects hope that they can cope with the challenges of neoliberalism by realizing their enjoyment in the future. The subjects may perform resilient strategies within the neoliberal system by believing that the system can answer their needs of enjoyment in the future. The second part of the question is that popular resistance has the similar patterns with the resilience for the neoliberal subject. When a neoliberal subject becomes vulnerable due to the side effects of the system, this creates a new symbolic regime for it. In Lacanian terms, the only way for a vulnerable subject to regain its subjectivity is to eradicate the current symbolic regime and transform itself into a mythic hero.

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Although Lacan and Žižek show the deficiency of the neoliberal self in its emancipation, understanding the study also offers another concept borrowed from Montgomery and Bergman, “joyful militancy,” which was inherited from Spinoza. The concept signifies a will to foster the other’s power in order to transform life with others. In other words, joyful militancy refers to solidarity and an altruistic way of cooperating with others in order to transform life. In this context, the neoliberal subject’s participation in popular resistance does not fit the concept of joyful militancy; rather, these actions are the narcissistic actions of the neoliberal self for recovering the feeling of insecurity, not for transforming the neoliberal system with systematic cooperation with others. As Lacan summarizes, these popular resistances are the actions of replacing the old master with the new one. The Gezi Park protest held in 2013 in Istanbul is a solid example of the theoretical framework. The Taksim Gezi Park protests began on May 28, 2013, against the plans of the government to demolish Taksim Gezi Park to set up a shopping mall and possible residences. The protestors encountered harsh eviction in the park, leading to the mobilization of thousands of people in the protests. The rationale of the protestors differed from each other. The participants did not have a systematic problem with neoliberalism in which their destruction desire of the symbolic regime was temporary (or a desire, in Lacanian terms) in its nature. The participants attended the Gezi Park mobilization to seek their singularized jouissance (enjoyment) of lost objects. The only common notion for the protestors was to stop authoritarian and exclusionary policies. For instance, some of the protestors demanded to force the president of the period to resign from his seat. The protestors tried to achieve this by creating solidarity with the other sectors of society and setting up joyful strategies that survived for a short period of time, such as organizing forums in the parks. Here, these forums did not serve for the radical transformation of the system due to the socioeconomic conditions and diverse interests of the participants in the forums, and more importantly, the participants did not have a problem of changing the neoliberal system in the country. The Gezi Park protests could not be transformed into a joyful act, and the protestors could not establish a stable and long-lasting ecosystem. They could not prevent neoliberal authoritarianism, and these protests could not go beyond to searching for a new master. By recalling the theoretical framework, what the participants demanded was to utilize the benefits of the system more. NOTES 1. See Donatella Della Porta, Massimiliano Andretta, Tiago Fernandes, Francis O’Connor, Eduardo Romanos, and Markos Vogiatzoglou, Late Neoliberalism and



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its Discontents in the Economic Crisis (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Nahide Konak and Rasim Özgür Dönmez, Nation Building and Turkish Modernization (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015). 2. Slovaj Žižek, Living in The End Times (London, Verso Books, 2011); see also Erik Swyngedouw, “Illiberalism and the Democratic Paradox: The Infernal Dialectic of Neo-Liberal Emancipation,” European Journal of Social Theory 25, no. 1 (2022). 3. Glenn Fieldman, “Neoliberalism, the Production of Vulnerability and the Hobbled State: Systemic Barriers to Climate Adaptation,” Climate and Development 3, no. 2 (2011): 159–71. 4. See Favaz A. Gerges, The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World (New York: University of Cambridge Press, 2014). 5. See Petras James and Veltmeyer Henry, Social Movements in Latin America (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Donatella Della Porta, Massimiliano Andretta, Tiago Fernandes, Francis O’Connor, Eduardo Romanos, and Markos Vogiatzoglou, Late Neoliberalism and its Discontents in the Economic Crisis (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay (eds.), Vulnerability in Resistance (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). 6. David Chandler and Reid Jullian Neo-liberal Subject:Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). 7. Nick Montgomery and Carla Bergman, Joyful Militancy: Building Resistance in Toxic Times (Chicago: AK Press, 2017). 8. David Chandler and Reid Jullian, Neo-liberal Subject, 2. 9. Ibid. 10. John Gray, AL QAEDA and What it Means to be Modern (New York: New Press, 2003). 11. David Chandler and Reid Jullian, Neo-liberal Subject, 2–3. 12. Luga Mavelli, “Citizenship For Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 482. 13. Ibid, 483. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Luca Mavelli, “Citizenship for Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 484. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid, 484. 20. See Anna Casaglia and Raffaella Coletti,“Territoralizing Threats in Nationalist Populist Narratives:An Itallian Perspective on the Migration and Covid-19 Crises,” Space and Polity, 2021, https:​//​www​.tandfonline​.com​/doi​/full​/10​.1080​/13562576​ .2021​.1991783​?scroll​=top​&needAccess​=true. 21. Micheal Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000). 22. Ibid, XII. In contrast to classical imperialism, Empire does not have a territorial center of power and does not depend on fixed boundaries. It is a decentered and

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deterritorializing apparatus of rule that gradually integrates the entire global world within its growing boundaries. 23. Micheal Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude (New York: Penguin Books, 2004). 24. Slaughter and Hale, “Hardt & Negri’s “Multitude” The Worst of Both Worlds,” Open Democracy, May 25, 2005, https:​//​www​.opendemocracy​ .net​/en​/marx​_2549jsp​/ 25. Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics:Neo-Liberalism and New Technologies of Power (Edinburgh: Verso, 2017), 7. 26. Ibid, 2. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid, 2–3. 29. Ibid, 2–4. 30. Ibid, 4 31. Nick Montgomery and Carla Bergman, Joyful Militancy. 32. Cited in Ibid. 33. Ibid, 29–30. 34. Ibid, 32. 35. Philippe Bourbeau and Ryan Caitlin, “Reslience, Resiatance, Infrapolitcs and Enmeshment,” European Journal of International Relations 24, no. 1 (2017): 2. 36. Jonathan Joseph, “Resilience as Embeded Neoliberalism:A Govermentality Approach,” Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses 1, no. 1 (2013): 51. 37. Bourbeu and Caitlin, “Resilience,” 2. Cited in Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Peter Hall and Michele Lamont, Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 14; ibid. 40. Cited in Bourbeu and Caitlin, “Resilience,”16. 41. Erik Swyngedouw, “Illiberalism and the Democratic Paradox:The Infernal Dialectic of Neo-Liberal Emancipation,” European Journal of Social Theory 25, no. 1 (2022): 54. 42. Ibid, 55. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. See Jacques Lacan, Piskanalizin Dört Temel Kavramı (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2013), 193; see also Jacques Lacan, The Ethics of Pscyhoanalysis (New York: Norton Company, 1997), 181–90. 45. Ibid; Lewis A. Krishner, “Rethinking Desire: The Objet Petit A In Lacanian Theory,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic 53, no. 1 (2004): 83–102. 46. Ibid; Jodi Dean, Zizek’s Politics (New York: Routledge, 2006), 4. 47. Krishner, “Rethinking Desire,” 83–88; Slavoj Žižek and Oğuz İnel, Zaten Yoktular (Metis Yayınları: İstanbul, 2021), 16–24; Lacan, Piskanalizin, 195. 48. Swyngedouw, “Illiberalism,” 62; see Slavoj Žižek, Dünyadaki İsyanların Anlamı (Agora Kitaplığı: İstanbul, 2013), 8. 49. See M.A.R Habib, Hegel And The Foundatıons Of Literary Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 171–205.



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50. Montgomery and Bergman, Joyful Militancy. 51. See Alternatif Gösteri Podcast. “Ankara Neydi Ne Oldu?” Spotify. https:​//​open​ .spotify​.com​/show​/5cFb88gbVVApSfybvS7W5N. 52. Alexander Langenkamp, “Enhancing, Supressing or Something in Between Lonileness and Five Forms of Political participation Across Europe,” European Societies 23, no. 3(2021): 1–17. 53. Ibid, 1. 54. Alexander, “Enhancing, Supressing,” 1–17. 55. Slavoj Žižek, “Occupy Wall Street: What is to be Done Next,” Guardian, April 24, 2022, https:​//​www​.theguardian​.com​/commentisfree​/cifamerica​/2012​/apr​/24​ /occupy​-wall​-street​-what​-is​-to​-be​-done​-next. 56. Ibid. 57. Cited in Ibid. 58. Gamze Hakverdi, Vulnus: Kırılganlık Üzerine (İstanbul: Metis yayınları, 2021), 12–16. 59. Mari Ruti, “Reading Lacan as a Social Critic,” Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 17, no. 1 (2012): 75. 60. Žižek, “Occupy Wall Street.” 61. Cited in Ibid. 62. Efe Can Gürcan and Efe Peker, “A Class Analytic Approach to the Gezi Park Events:Challenging the ‘Middle Class’ Myth,” Capital and Class 39, no. 2 (2015): 329–30. 63. See Merih Angın and Pınar Bedirhanaoğlu, “Privatization Processes as Ideological Moments: The Block Sales of Large-scale State Enterprises in Turkey in the 2000s,” New Perspectives on Turkey 47, no. 2 (2012): 139–67. 64. Rasim Özgür Dönmez, “Nationalism in Turkey under Justice and Development Party Rule: The Logic of Masculinist Protection,” Turkish Studies 16, no. 4 (2015): 557–62. 65. “Erdoğan: ‘İki ayyaşın yaptığı yasa . . . ,’ Sözcü, May 28, 2013, https:​//​www​ .sozcu​.com​.tr​/2013​/gundem​/erdogan​-konusuyor​-10​-301877​/. 66. Ruşen Çakır, Türkiye Tartışıyor 1: Mahalle Baskısı (İstanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2008), 17. 67. “Tartışmaların odağındaki ‘Gezi Parkı’nda ne olmuştu?”Anadolu Ajansı, February 20,2020, https:​//​www​.aa​.com​.tr​/tr​/turkiye​/tartismalarin​-odagindaki​-gezi​ -parkinda​-ne​-olmustu​/1739319. 68. “Gezi Parkı Direnişi Sırasında Hayatını Kaybedenler,” Sözcü, June 1 2015, https: ​ / / ​ w ww​. sozcu​ . com​ . tr​ / 2015​ / gundem​ / gezi​ - parki ​ - direnisi ​ - sirasinda ​ - hayatini​ -kaybedenler​-845977​/; “Kaç Kişi Eylemlere Katıldı,” ODATV, September 14, 2013, https:​//​www​.odatv4​.com​/guncel​/kac​-kisi​-eylemlere​-katildi​-1409131200​-44117. 69. Severin Guillard and David McGillivray, “Eventful Policies, Public Spaces and Neoliberal Citizenship: Lessons from Glasgow,” Cities 130 (2022): 3. 70. See Murat Gül, John Dee, and Cahide Nur Cünük, “Istanbul’s Taksim Square and Gezi Park: The Place of Protest and The ideology of Place,” Journal of Architecture and Urbanism 38, no. 1 (2014): 63–72. 71. Efe Can Gürcan and Efe Peker, “A Class,” 329–30.

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72. “Sokak Röportajları Kim Bu Gezi Parkındakiler,” https:​//​www​.youtube​.com​/ watch​?v​=5u00AagLvoQ. 73. İbid. 74. “İşte Taksim Dayanışma Platformu’nun Talepleri,” Milliyet, June 5, 2013. 75. Žižek, “Occupy Wall Street.” 76. Ibid. 77. “Büyü Bozuldu,” Bağımsızlık Yolu, https:​//​ihsaneliacik​.com​/soylesi​-buyu​ -bozuldu​/. 78. Swyngedouw, “Illiberalism,” 56. 79. See Ibid, 54.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alternatif Gösteri Podcast. “Ankara Neydi Ne Oldu?” Spotify. https:​//​open​.spotify​ .com​/show​/5cFb88gbVVApSfybvS7W5N Angın, Merih, and Bedirhanaoğlu, Pınar. “Privatization Processes as Ideological Moments: The Block Sales of Large-scale State Enterprises in Turkey in the 2000s.” New Perspectives on Turkey 47, no. 2 (2012): 139–67. Bourbeau, Philippe, and Caitlin, Ryan. “Resilience, Resistance, Infrapolitics and Enmeshment.” European Journal of International Relations 24, no. 1 (2017): 374–95. Butler, Judith, Gambetti, Zeynep, and Sabsay, Leticia (eds.). Vulnerability in Resistance. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. “Büyü Bozuldu.” Bağımsızlık Yolu, May 5, 2022. https:​//​ihsaneliacik​.com​/soylesi​ -buyu​-bozuldu​/ Çakır, Ruşen. Türkiye Tartışıyor 1: Mahalle Baskısı. İstanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2008. Casaglia, Anna, and Coletti, Raffaella. “Territoralizing Threats in Nationalist Populist Narratives:An Itallian Perspective on the Migration and Covid-19 Crises.” Space and Polity (2021). https:​//​www​.tandfonline​.com​/doi​/full​/10​.1080​/13562576​.2021​ .1991783​?scroll​=top​&needAccess​=true Chandler, David, and Reid, Jullian. Neo-liberal Subject: Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Dean, Jodi. Žižek Politics. New York: Routledge, 2006. Della Porta, Donatella, Andretta, Massimiliano, Fernandes, Tiago, O’Connor, Francis, Romanos, Eduardo, and Vogiatzoglou, Markos. Late Neoliberalism and Its Discontents in the Economic Crisis. Cham-Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Dönmez, Rasim Özgür. “Nationalism in Turkey under Justice and Development Party Rule: The Logic of Masculinist Protection.” Turkish Studies 16, no. 4 (2015): 557–62. “Erdoğan: ‘İki Ayyaşın Yaptığı Yasa . . . ’” Sözcü May 28, 2013. https:​//​www​.sozcu​ .com​.tr​/2013​/gundem​/erdogan​-konusuyor​-10​-301877​/



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Fieldman, Glenn. “Neoliberalism, the Production of Vulnerability and the Hobbled State: Systemic Barriers to Climate Adaptation.” Climate and Development 3, no. 2 (2011): 159–71. Gerges, Favaz. The New Middle East:Protest and Revolution in the Arab World. New York: University of Cambridge Press, 2014. “Gezi Parkı Direnişi Sırasında Hayatını Kaybedenler.” Sözcü, June 1, 2015. https:​//​www​.sozcu​.com​.tr​/2015​/gundem​/gezi​-parki​-direnisi​-sirasinda​-hayatini​ -kaybedenler​-845977​/ Gray, John. AL QAEDA and What it Means to be Modern. New York: New Press: 2003. Guillard, Severin, and McGillivray, David. “Eventful Policies, Public Spaces and Neoliberal Citizenship: Lessons from Glasgow.” Cities 130, (2022). Gül, Murat, Dee, John, and Nur Cünük, Cahide. “Istanbul’s Taksim Square and Gezi Park: The Place of Protest and the Ideology of Place.” Journal of Architecture and Urbanism 38, no. 1 (2014): 63–72. Gürcan, Efe Can, and Efe Peker. “A Class Analytic Approach to the Gezi Park Events:Challenging the ‘Middle Class’ Myth.” Capital and Class 39, no. 2 (2015): 321–43. Habib, M.A.R. Hegel and The Foundations of Literary Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Hakverdi, Gamze. Vulnus: Kırılganlık Üzerine. Metis Yayınları: İstanbul, 2021. Hall, Peter, and Lamont, Michele. Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Han, Byung-Chul. Psychopolitics:Neo-Liberalism and New Technologies of Power. Edinburgh: Verso, 2017. Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. “İşte Taksim Dayanışma Platformu’nun Talepleri.” Milliyet, June 5, 2013. James, Petras, and Veltmeyer, Henry. Social Movements in Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Joseph, Jonathan. “Resilience as Embedded Neoliberalism: A Governmentality Approach.” Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses 1, no. 1 (2013): 38–52. “Kaç Kişi Eylemlere Katıldı.” ODATV, September 14, 2013. https:​//​www​.odatv4​ .com​/guncel​/kac​-kisi​-eylemlere​-katildi​-1409131200​-44117 Konak, Nahide, and Dönmez, Rasim Özgür. Waves of Social Movement Mobilization in the Twenty-first Century: Challenges to the Neo-Liberal World Order and Democracy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015. Krishner, Lewis A. “Rethinking Desire: The Objet Petit A in Lacanian Theory.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic 53, no. 1 (2004): 83–102. Lacan, Jacques. Piskanalizin Dört Temel Kavramı. İstanbul: Metis Yayınları. Lacan, Jacques. The Ethics of Pscyhoanalysis. New York: Norton Company, 1997. Langenkamp, Alexander. “Enhancing, Supressing or Something in Between Loneliness and Five Forms of Political Participation Across Europe.” European Societies 23, no.3 (2021): 1–17.

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Mari, Ruti. “Reading Lacan as A Social Critic.” Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 17, no. 1 (2012): 69–81. Mavelli, Luga. “Citizenship For Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging.” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 482–93. Montgomery, Nick, and Bergman, Carla. Joyful Militancy: Building Resistance in Toxic Times. Chicago: AK Press, 2017. Slaughter, Anne-Maria, and Hale, Thomas Hale. “Hardt & Negri’s “Multitude” The Worst of Both Worlds.” Open Democracy, May 25, 2005. https:​//​www​.opendemocracy​.net​/en​/marx​_2549jsp​/ “Sokak Röportajları Kim Bu Gezi Parkındakiler.” May 10, 2022. https:​//​www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=5u00AagLvoQ Swyngedouw, Erik. “Illiberalism and the Democratic Paradox: The Infernal Dialectic of Neo-Liberal Emancipation.” European Journal of Social Theory 25, no. 1 (2022): 53–74. “Tartışmaların odağındaki ‘Gezi Parkı’nda ne olmuştu?”Anadolu Ajansı, February 20, 2020. https:​//​www​.aa​.com​.tr​/tr​/turkiye​/tartismalarin​-odagindaki​-gezi​-parkinda​ -ne​-olmustu​/1739319 Žižek, Slovaj, and İnel, Oğuz. Zaten Yoktular. İstanbul: Metis yayınları, 2021. Žižek, Slovaj. “Occupy Wall Street: What is to be Done Next.” Guardian, April 24, 2022. https:​//​www​.theguardian​.com​/commentisfree​/cifamerica​/2012​/apr​/24​/ occupy​-wall​-street​-what​-is​-to​-be​-done​-next Žižek, Slovaj. Living in The End Times. London: Verso Books, 2011. Žižek,Slovaj. Dünyadaki İsyanların Anlamı. Agora Kitaplığı: İstanbul, 2013.

Conclusion

This book displays how neoliberal subjects, particularly the middle class in Turkey, are affected by and respond to the challenges of neoliberalism, through either resilience or resistance. The book sheds light on how the neoliberalism-oriented, market-led citizenship regime in Turkey diminishes the neoliberalization of citizenship to commodification which extends to all human activities and how the middle class shows resilience/resistance to this fact. This glorification of market is, in practice, reread as the “end of politics” by some Marxist scholars.1 Controversy with the nature of politics permanently forces the neoliberal subject to compromise with existing power relations and situations. Chandler and Reid define the neoliberal subject as follows: a subject which accepts the unknowability of the world in which it lives as a condition for partaking of that world, and which accepts the necessity of the injunction to change itself and adapt in order to cope responsively with the threats and dangers now presupposed as endemic.2

In this vein, neoliberalism—in practice and in discourse—encourages neoliberal subjects to adapt to the insecurity and unknowability of the conditions that foster governments to create opportunities. This leads to more adaptive and resilient subjects within the rules and mechanisms of markets. In other words, neoliberalism forces governments to empower markets and “market-based forms of choice-making” as an essential condition in the subjects’ adaptation against risks and threats.3 As seen in the book, neoliberal-led globalism has also had a strong impact on neoliberal subjects in Turkey, causing vulnerability and deep insecurity among them. This vulnerability and insecurity stem from the radical economic policies of the Justice and the Development Party that has been aiming to integrate Turkey radically into neoliberal-led global markets. This process has driven Turkey to radical marketization, including the marketization of citizenship that dominates every sphere of life for Turkish citizens. This marketization of citizenship has been generated through patriarchal discourse and male-friendly policies. In her chapter, Marella Bodur Ün 173

174

Conclusio

analyzes this fact from the gender perspective. She reveals that the neoconservative party—the Justice and the Development Party—follows patriarchal policies by imposing a heteronormative understanding of family excluding, to a great extent, the notion of LGBT people and devaluing women in its discourse and daily practices. This anti-gender project aims to set up a masculinist restoration in Turkey with the goals of defending male interests and generating physical and ontological insecurity for women in all segments of society. Selcan Serdaroğlu Polatay’s chapter also shows how Turkey’s method of neoliberal developmentalism and its ambition for the accumulation of wealth through the capitalization of nature paves the way for vulnerability for the local communities that leaves no other alternative except politics of discontent with the assistance of urban advocacy groups. The neoliberal-led global capitalism and its implications in Turkey strongly hinders institutional resistance and solidarity networks in society, such as strong civil society oppositions, labor unions, etc. This fact creates the feeling of singularity on the neoliberal self. As Rasim Özgür Dönmez remarks, the protests as manifestation of resistance toward the displeasures of neoliberalism in Turkey reveal a fragmented nature range—from feminist protests to environmental protests—without structural criticism of neoliberal system and without attempting to establish strong solidarity networks and opposition in Turkey. Resistance efforts of the neoliberal self against neoliberalism cannot go beyond wishful thinking of the self-improvement of its own wellbeing. This is because the system holder’s ambitions of wealth accumulation through exploitation of nature and human labor have always been creating new problems for the neoliberal self. In addition, the empowerment of capital is boosted by the rescaling of Turkish law in areas such as trade, procurement, etc., through the strong assistance provided by government policies. Ercan and Oğuz remark that this process has been shaped by global capitals with the contribution of the domestic institutions in Turkey.4 As the Ennelis and Topuz reveal in their chapters, these developments have been leading to gradual melting of the middle class in Turkey and their experience of relative and subjective poverty. In this framework, resilience remains the primary political instrument for neoliberal subjects to deal with their vulnerability and insecurity. As Dönmez puts it, by addressing Lacan, the neoliberal self who remains with its singularity copes with the challenges stemming from neoliberalism by hoping to realize its enjoyment in the future. This is why rather resisting the neoliberal-led capitalist system, it chooses to bring reforms to it. In other words, this is an egoistic political action of the neoliberal self, though it has an impact on the sociopolitical and economic system. The main aim of these resilience strategies is the utilization of the self rather than developing the community or society. In their chapter, Çağlar and Pınar Enneli exemplify

Conclusion

175

the infra-political action of neoliberal subjects. They state their insecurity and vulnerability stemming from the economic crises strongly felt since 2018 has been expressed on the famous online platform Ekşi Sözlük (Sour Dictionary). The authors remark that writing on Sour Dictionary is a mode of dramatic expression providing infra-politics referring to the enmeshment of resistance with resilience for neoliberal self at individual and collective levels. Senem Kurt Topuz’s chapter also reveals to us that the deteriorating economic conditions in Turkey led to the emergence of the perspective of subjective poverty among those in the middle class, causing them to feel vulnerable. People in the middle class find economic tactics to cope with poverty and to maintain resilience, such as spreading their existing savings, limiting expenses, doing extra jobs, etc. In short, the book shows the reader the socioeconomic struggles and sociopolitical response of the neoliberal subjects, especially those in the middle class. Neoliberal-led capitalism in Turkey surrenders the middle class, erodes their habitus, and hinders their wellbeing. Nonetheless, resilience and resistance attempts have been continuing and will continue. However, without setting up legal institutional and solid networks such as strong trade unions, global vanguard parties, and radical criticism of the neoliberal ecosystem, these actions will not go beyond the restoration of neoliberal-led Global South capitalism. NOTES 1. Luca Mavelli, “Citizenship for Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 482. 2. David Chandler and Julian Reid, The Neoliberal Subject Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 4. 3. Ibid. 4. See Fuat Ercan and Şebnem Oğuz, “Rescaling as a Class Relationship and Process: The Case of Public Procurement Law in Turkey,” Political Geography 25, no. 6 (2006): 641–56.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Chandler, David, and Reid, Julian. The Neoliberal Subject Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability. London: Rowman &Littlefield, 2016.

176

Conclusio

Ercan, Fuat, and Oğuz, Şebnem. “Rescaling as a Class Relationship and Process: The Case of Public Procurement Law in Turkey.” Political Geography 25, no. 6 (2006): 641–56. Mavelli, Luca. “Citizenship for Sale and the Neoliberal Political Economy of Belonging.” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2018): 482–93.

Appendix 1 Demographic Characteristics of the Participants

Table A.1. Demographic characteristics of the participants

Marital Code Age Gender status

Education

Number of people in the Working household Income(TL)* status

P1

30

Male

Single

Graduate

4

P2

35

Male

Single

Undergraduate 1

P3

54

Male

Married

Undergraduate 6

P4

54

Male

Married

High school

3

P5

35

Male

Married

Middle school

4

P6

41

Male

Married

Undergraduate 4

P7

61

Male

Married

Undergraduate 2

P8

36

Male

Single

Graduate

3

P9

44

Male

Married

Graduate

4

P10

37

Female Married

High school

6

P11

57

Female Married

Primary school 3

P12

23

Female Single

High school

4

P13

22

Female Single

High school

4

177

6,400 and less 6,401– 12,800 12,801– 19,200 6,401– 12,800 19,201– 25,600 19,201– 25,600 12,801– 19,200 12,801– 19,200 12,801– 19,200 6,401– 12,800 6,401– 12,800 6,401– 12,800 12,801– 19,200

Looking for a job Working Working Working Working Working Retired Working Looking for a job Working Working Looking for a job Looking for a job

178

Appendix 1

P14

38

Female Married

Graduate

3

P15

35

Female Married

Undergraduate 4

P16

42

Female Single

Graduate

1

P17

54

Female Married

High school

4

P18

43

Female Married

Primary school 4

P19

58

Female Married

Primary school 4

P20

68

Female Married

Undergraduate 2

P21

45

Female Single

High school

P22

41

Female Married

Undergraduate 4

P23

33

Female Single

Graduate

P24

62

Female Married

Undergraduate 4

P25

31

Female Married

Primary school 5

P26

45

Female Married

High school

4

12,801– 19,200

P27

39

Female Married

High school

4

12,801– 19,200

P28

23

Male

Single

High school

4

P29

24

Male

Single

High school

5

P30

44

Male

Married

Graduate

4

P31

39

Male

Married

Middle school

4

P32

46

Male

Married

High school

4

P33

43

Male

Married

High school

3

12,801– 19,200 25,601– 32,000 38,401– 44,800 12,801– 19,200 25,601– 32,000 6,400 and less

4

1

32,001– 38,400 19,201– 25,600 6,400 and less 19,201– 25,600 19,201– 25,600 6,401– 12,800 12,801– 19,200 6,401– 12,800 19,201– 25,600 6,400 and less 12,801– 19,200 6,400 and less

Working Working Working Busy with housework Other Busy with housework Retired Working Working Looking for a job Retired Busy with housework Busy with housework Busy with housework Working Working Working Working Working Working

179

Appendix 1 P34

47

Female Married

Undergraduate 5

P35

67

Female Widow

Primary school 2

* 1$ = 18,9 TL Source: This table is created by the contributor.

32,001– 38,400 19,201– 25,600

Working Retired

Index

accumulation, 76, 80, 83, 86, 108; by dispossession, 80, 83; networks, 83, 87. See also capital accumulation; over accumulation; primitive accumulation; rentier accumulation Akbelen, 75, 96, 100, 103, 105 anti-genderism, 124, 126–27, 130, 134, 137 anti-gender movements, 125–26 anti-Islamic, 130 anti-Western, 127, 130–31 Arab Spring, 15, 151–52, 161 Aslan, Özgecan, 135, 143n83 Bergama, 75, 76, 83, 94, 97, 99, 100, 103–5 capital accumulation, 15, 78, 80, 83, 86, 87, 93 consumer product types 3, 50, 53, 57–61, 65; for maintenance of class position, 61–62; related to hopes for social mobility, 60–63; of vulnerabilities and sensibilities, 59, 61 consumption, 3, 53, 55–57, 61 counter-public, 135, 137 crisis of masculinity, 127

decisions on January 24, 1980, 15 definitions of poverty, 11; objective poverty, 9, 11–12, 24, 28; relative poverty, 11–12; subjective poverty, 9, 11–12, 28–29 dramatization as politics, 62–64 ecological: awareness, 78, 102, 104; citizenship, 76, 77; conflict(s), 79, 95–96, 100, 106, 108; distribution conflicts (EDCs), 78– 79, 13, 16, 19; economics, 78; political analysis, 82; resistance, 99, 110n30, 114n80 economic crisis, 3, 49–50, 52–55, 57 empowerment, 131, 137, 162, 174 environmental: commons, 80; justice, 77–83, 92; injustice, 76, 77, 80; movements, 76, 106, 115n100; resistance, 75–78, 81–86, 99, 102, 104, 106, 107, 109n20, 110n26; resistance movements, 102, 104, 107 environmental impact assessment (EIA), 87, 89, 92–94, 97, 98, 101, 102, 105–7 environmentalism, 77, 78, 95, 103; of the poor, 78, 81 existential anxiety, 124–25, 136 expropriation, 84, 88, 97, 100, 102 extractivism, 76, 79, 82, 83, 85, 86 181

182

Index

femicide, 131, 134–35 feminist activism: #ChallengeAccepted, 135; #sendeanlat, 135; social media activism, 135–37; #SuleCetIcinAdalet, 135 feminist and women’s organizations, 129, 132–37 feminist resistance, 131–36 gender equality, 4, 123–24, 128–30, 132–34 gender ideology, 4, 123, 125– 26, 130, 136 gender justice, 130 the Gezi Park Protests, 4, 97, 128, 152–53, 161–65 Giddens, Anthony, 124–25, 131 Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas), 76, 81, 95, 97, 98 Global South, 78, 79, 81–83, 92, 99, 108 Gültekin, Pınar, 135 human development, 35 Human Development Index, 13 Human Development Report, 35 impoverishment, 16, 23–24, 27–31, 36–37 Income and Living Conditions Study for 2021, 16 infra-politics, 50, 175 Istanbul Convention, 123, 128, 130, 132–36 jouissance, 158, 165–66 Kandiyoti, Deniz, 127 Lacan, 156–58, 160–61, 164–66, 174 Law No. 6284, 128, 130, 132 LGBTQ+, 4, 123, 126–28, 131, 133–36 Life Satisfaction Research, 55

masculinist restoration project, 4, 123– 24, 127, 130–31, 136–37, 174 metabolic rift, 79, 84, 85, 88 mining, 75, 76, 83, 86–89, 92, 94, 98, 101–3, 105; activities, 83–83, 89, 101, 105–7; company, 103, 105; conflicts, 97; exploration, 87, 100; law, 97; licenses, 89, 90, 101; products, 83, 84; sector, 88, 94 negative outcomes of inflation in social life, 36 neoliberal developmentalism, 76, 82, 85, 174 the neoliberal subject, 1, 151–56, 158– 61, 163, 165–66, 173, 175 NIABY. See not in anybody’s backyard NIMBY. See not in my backyard not in anybody’s backyard, 81, 104 not in my backyard, 77, 81, 104 Occupy Wall Street, 151, 159, 161, 163 ontological (in)security, 123–25, 131, 135–37, 165, 174 overaccumulation, 80 patriarchy, 127, 137 Polanyi, Karl, 79–80 political ecology, 76, 78, 82, 94 political economy, 76, 82, 86 poverty and social policies, 13, 36–37 poverty experience: modern societies, 34; premodern period, 34 pro-family discourses and policies, 4, 123, 127–29, 133, 136–37 pro-government women’s organizations, 129, 133 pro-natalist, 129 primitive accumulation, 80 psychological resilience, 10, 17–18 public-private partnerships, 76, 87, 94 rentier accumulation, 86 resilience, 1–4, 7, 9, 10–11, 17–18, 31, 50, 56, 64, 131, 151–52, 156–58,

Index

162, 165, 173–75; strategies, 2–3, 9, 31, 34, 159, 174 resistance, 2–4, 50, 64–65, 75–78, 80–81, 83, 86, 94, 95–99, 100–104, 106–7, 123–24, 126–27, 131, 133, 137, 151–53, 156–59, 160–66, 173– 75; network, 94, 174 social metabolism, 79, 82, 108 Sour Dictionary, 3, 49, 50, 56–61, 63–65, 69n61, 175 state capitalism, 85, 86

Thrace, 77, 81, 88, 89, 96–98, 100–102, 107 Turkish capitalism, 86 violence against women, 127–28, 130, 132–36 welfare state, 13–14 working poor, 35 World Health Organization, 17 Žižek, 151, 158, 160–61, 164, 166

183

About the Contributors

Professor Rasi̇m Özgür Dönmez is a professor of politics in the international relations department of Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University. He is the founder and the editor of academic journal Alternatif Politika. He holds his MPhil and PhD in University of Exeter/UK. He is an expert on Turkish studies. His research interests include social movements, social and political mobilization, nationalism, and political violence. He has published numerous journal articles in reputative international journals such as Turkish Studies, Nations and nationalism, South East European and Black Sea Studies, etc. He co-edited Nation-Building and Turkish Modernization: Islam, Islamism, and Nationalism in Turkey (with Ali Yaman); Waves of Social Movement Mobilizations in the Twenty-First Century: Challenges to Neo-liberal World Order and Democracy (with Naide Konak); Gendered Identities in Turkey: Criticizing Patriarchy in Turkey (with Fazilet Ahu Özmen); and Societal Peace and Ideal Citizenship in Turkey (with Pınar Enneli). Dr. Çağlar Enneli̇ is an associate professor in social anthropology of Ankara University. He holds both his MSc and PhD degrees in social anthropology from anthropology departments of University College London in 2001 and of Ankara University in 2007, respectively. His research interests are anthropology of mass consumption and consumption-based religious collectivities, rituals, discourses, sensations, and practices. His selected works are “Reinforcement and Erosion of Traditional Gender Roles among Young People in a Poor Metropolitan Area of Turkey” (Journal of Youth Studies 20, no. 3: 349–65 [with Pınar Enneli]); “At the Intersection of Neoliberalism and Islam—Being a Muslim Woman in Turkish Universities,” in Mairtin Mac an Ghaill and Chris Haywood (eds.) Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism: Schooling a “Suspect Community.” Professor Pınar Enneli̇ is a professor of sociology. She is currently a free researcher. She received her MPhil and PhD in sociology from Bristol University, UK. Her research interests include youth studies, gender, and class relations. She conducted several national and international projects in these 185

186

About the Contributors

subject areas. She has conducted many projects on youth studies. Her selective works are Young Turks and Kurds: A Set of “Invisible” Disadvantaged Groups (Black and Minority Ethnic Young People S.) (with Tariq Madood and Harriet Bradley); “At the Intersection of Neo-liberalism and Islam: Being a Muslim Woman in Turkish Universities,” in Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism (with H. Çağlar Enneli). Dr. Selcan Serdaroğlu Polatay is an associate professor of international relations at Galatasaray University/Istanbul. She holds her PhD in economics from Strasbourg University. She has worked as a visiting research fellow at the Iddri on the international governance of biodiversity (Institut du développement durable et relations internationales). Her research interests focus on sustainable development implementation in emerging countries, Latin American politics and economics, international biodiversity governance, and cooperation issues in international trade. She has made publications on sustainable development governance, the international governance of biotechnology and biodiversity, trade wars, and environmental politics in peer-reviewed international and national journals and books. Her selective publications include “International Governance of Agricultural Biodiversity at the Crossroads of Biosafety and Market Dynamics” (Alternatif Politika 3, no. 2: 134–53); “Trade and Environment at the Crossroads: Evolution of the International Governance of Biosafety” (International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 1, no. 5: 111–20); “Public-Private Interaction for Sustainable Development Learning in Brazil: A Case Study on Reflexive Governance and Foreign Environmental Policy-Making” (International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 5, no. 6: 143–56); and “Who Likes Cooperation? A Long-Term Analysis of the Trade War between the US, the EU and China” (Uluslararası İlişkiler/ınternational Relations 17, no. 67: 41–60). Dr. Senem Kurt Topuz is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration at Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University, Bolu, Turkey. She received her PhD degree from Gazi University in the field of politics and social sciences. She holds her postdoctoral studies at the University of Manchester (2011–2012) and Manchester Metropolitan University (2013), UK. Her research focuses on gender studies, poverty, discrimination, and social policy. She has publications on citizenship, capability approach, women poverty and women’s freedom in Turkey. Her selected works are The Issue of Women Poverty and Women’s Freedom in Turkey in The Context of Capability Approach; “Gypsies and Citizenship in Turkey,” in Rasim Özgür Dönmez and Pınar Enneli (eds.), Societal Peace and Ideal Citizenship in Turkey; and “Nation Building and Gender Regime in Turkey,” in Rasim Özgür Dönmez

About the Contributors

187

and Ali Yaman (eds.), Nation-Building and Turkish Modernization: Islam, Islamism, and Nationalism in Turkey. Dr Marella Bodur Ün is associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Çukurova University, Turkey. She received her MA in political science and international relations from Boğaziçi University and her PhD in political science from Carleton University, Canada. Her research interests include gender and politics, social movements, norm contestation, international relations theory, and migration. Her recent work has been published, among others, in Review of International Studies, JCMS—Journal of Common Market Studies, Turkish Studies, and Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space. Her latest publications include “Contestation of the Global Norm against Violence against Women in Turkey” (Turkish Studies published online April 2, 2023); “Europeanization and de-Europeanization of Turkey’s Gender Equality Policy: the case of the Istanbul Convention” (JCMS- Journal of Common Market Studies, 60, no. 4 (2022): 945–62 [with Harun Arıkan]); and “Counter-Hegemonic Struggle and the Framing Practices of the Anti-Nuclear Platform in Turkey (2002–2018)” (Environment and Planning C- Politics and Space, 40, no. 1 (2022): 31–49 [with Sevgi Balkan Şahin]).